Decades of I-40 makeovers wrapping up

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The collective sigh of relief heard Friday in northeast Albuquerque came from drivers on Interstate 40 as lanes opened and barriers disappeared around the new San Mateo interchange.

Around 1:30 p.m. crews began loading and hauling away the orange barrels. As each hour passed fewer orange barrels could be seen on or around I-40 and San Mateo Boulevard NE.

Some driver’s said it was a sight they thought they would never see.

“We can't remember any significant amount of time when there wasn't something,” Bianca Gemco-Morrison said. "We love our highway. It's beautiful now but are they going to be done, done.

“We don't take the highway west for, I don't know, two months now."

The project is the last piece in a 20-year overhaul of I-40 through the city. For more than a year it's been a slow obstacle course as state Department of Transportation contractors built a redesigned interchange and widened the freeway.

For drivers the frustrations grew each month.

”We have to leave an extra 15 minutes early because of the construction,” Ryan Oberer said.

But not after Friday’s barrel clean-up.

The $41 million project also added more lanes to the interstate including more merging lanes.

While drivers were taking in the new sights minus the orange barrels and work construction signs, business owners were seeing dollar signs.

Since the construction has been underway many businesses off of San Mateo suffered.
Managers at “Others Mothers” said the have seen fewer customers because the construction mess made there interstate access not very accessible.

“We weren't able to turn into here, so it was really hard,” Oberer said about the children’s clothing store. After hearing about the construction coming to an end Oberer said she plans to stop by the store more often.

That’s just what Other Mothers employee Alison Parks wants to hear. She hopes now that the construction is over their location with easy access off the interstate will finally pay off.

“The sales were certainly down,” Parks said.

DOT district spokesman Phil Gallegos said there is still some cosmetic work to be done, but it should not interfere with traffic.

This was the final phase of the $1 billion effort to widen I-40 through Albuquerque and to bring interchanges up to date.

Just west of the city the DOT is spending $27 million federal stimulus money is to rebuild the I-40-Paseo de Volcán interchange and extend the westbound climbing lane. That project began in June and is expected to take a year to complete.