Public comments on the Highway 60 project will be accepted until Nov.10.

The project is for mile post 135.5 to 139 and includes five segments: Rural, Urban South, “Y” Intersection, Urban East and California Street/Spring Street.

According to the New Mexico Department Transportation website, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the condition of roadway, traffic, and drainage and assess the features against current standards to determine whether improvements are needed to enhance safety, operations, and multimodal accessibility in the study area.

The US 60 Socorro public involvement meeting on Oct. 11 provided the public information on the alternatives for each segment. District Engineer, Aaron Chavarria said the meeting had a turnout of about 30 people.

“The attendees at the meeting were pretty engaged, they asked a lot of questions and commented a lot on roundabouts; they aren’t very popular, I guess, which is okay, that’s what these meetings are for.” Chavarria said.

Rob Selina, Coordinator of Socorro Trails, who attended the meeting, said that he felt like the meeting was productive and they were clearly interested in feedback from the community.

Selina said that he was able to access data from Strava Metro, an exercise tracking app, that shows a significant increase of outdoor physical activity in Socorro County. Compared to 2019 (pre pandemic) bike use is up by 84% and pedestrian use is up by 140%.

“The Highway 60 renovations are a great opportunity to improve access to the trails and get people out walking and biking improving their health in the process. It can also improve safety for pedestrian and bike traffic while continuing to let car traffic flow freely. There are win-win options here where some parts of the community gain and nobody loses.” Selina said. “I’m glad to see NM DOT and the city exploring these concepts.”

The next public meeting is scheduled for January 2024.

To watch a video with information on all the options and/or to submit a comment visit:
https://www.dot.nm.gov/projects/active-projects/us60socorrostudy/
For more information visit: https://www.dot.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CN1102050-US-60-SOCORRO.pdf

 

Jessica Carranza Pino, Editor