LOS LUNAS, N.M. (KRQE) – Many drivers in the Village of Los Lunas say they are frustrated by the increase in traffic on Main street from Facebook and Amazon’s construction. Drivers say their commutes have gotten much longer during their rush hour commute after sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“It’s definitely gotten pretty bad with the expansion of Facebook and Amazon, this time of day late in the afternoon everyone is getting off of work trying to get to the stores, the congestion gets pretty bad. You can pretty much sit here on main street for a good 20-25 minutes,” said driver Adam Webb.
After hearing many of the same concerns, The Village of Los Lunas’ Community of Development Director, Erin Callahan says multiple projects are underway to help fix the problem. “We definitely have heard the concerns of our residents that the traffic along the west side of Main street has gotten very challenging. To exasperate all that, the state Department of Transportation has been doing a much needed road widening project along Main street,” said Callahan.
With road improvements already underway, some drivers say they are still frustrated sitting in traffic and are wishing for more immediate relief from the congestion. “It’s causing people to pull forward and block the intersection when the traffic lights change, just so they don’t have to sit through another one but then that backlogs the lanes that merge with it and it’s just out of hand,” said driver Robert Griego.
Callahan says the village is also working to synchronize traffic lights along Main Street to reduce backups during peak hours. “When the lights aren’t synchronized properly, then it just can cause much more severe backups. It will not only synchronize the lights but also allow remote access if we see that there are backups that are happening,” Callahan said.
Callahan says the synchronized signals, which will run along Main Street from Los Morros on the west side all the way down to Carson drive on the east will be funded by Facebook’s Meta Data Center. That’s part of their traffic impact analysis that looks at how much traffic they cause. The village says the project will begin over the next few months. They expect the project to take about five years to install all of the synchronized traffic lights.
