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NM DOT ready for questions at PDV open house
Community members ask questions and view project boards for Paseo Del Volcan extension.
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RIO RANCHO — The New Mexico Department of Transportation held an open house Aug. 14 at the Star Heights Recreation Center to educate the community about the next stage of the Paseo del Volcan extension project.
The study area starts at Rainbow Boulevard and generally follows 28th Avenue west, turning south after Vista Road and extending south along 20th Street to Southern Boulevard — a distance of approximately seven miles.
After studying the extension area, NMDOT concluded that PDV will provide an efficient connection to Southern and Northern boulevards and will improve access to jobs, schools and services in Rio Rancho. It will also improve access for police, fire and emergency medical services and provide a route usable by school buses.
Luke Smith, NMDOT P.E. project development engineer manager says they welcome any questions about the project, which the open house was intended to help answer.
"We're designing this road, and we want to just see from the community, the people who are going to be impacted, what they would like to see in the new road that comes in, about what kind of amenities they'd like to see. That's really it is just answering questions or to dispel any misconceptions that folks might have," he said.
Some of the questions had to do with property values and impact on prices.
Smith says the real estate is going up either way.
"We're just finding that the cost of the acquisition of these properties, mostly undeveloped properties and also homes, market values have just gone up so much since we originally started acquisition," he added.
He started the acquisition scope of Sandoval County in 2020.
As County Manager Wayne Johnson stated when the study of the project was announced, cost of everything is increasing. Smith says they're seeing increases in cost of materials and labor in most of their projects.
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Another inquiry was about the water distribution plants in the area, but Smith says the road itself won't cause problems there.
Right now the project is still not close to construction as it remains in the design phases. Smith says they are working on evaluating alternatives, which means getting public feedback to incorporate into the proposed recommended alternatives to the project.
The next stage involves preliminary design, where Smith will put together plan sets and project estimates for the construction.
"And also just working with the state and Federal Highway Administration on funding to pay for the construction of the project," he said.
As far as the community is concerned, Smith and NMDOT just want to hear any feedback or questions on the project.
For more information visit nmdot.gov.
