NM Legislature

Transfer of transportation regulation from PRC to NMDOT heads to Governor’s desk

By |

A bill that would transfer the transportation regulatory duties from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to the New Mexico Department of Transportation is headed to the governor’s desk. SB 160 passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday and the Senate concurred with the amendments made to the legislation later the same day. Those amendments were made in the House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee. Sen. Steve Neville, R-Farmington, explained the amendment to the Senate on Wednesday evening. The amendment changes the date of the change to July 1, 2024 from Jan.

Upper Rio Grande Wildlife Corridors Summit

To protect wildlife, state agencies pledge collaboration in wildlife corridors

By |

As the divisions of the United States have grown more complex over the years, lawmakers, regulators and landowners have been busy dividing up land. Railroads, highways, fencing and pipelines now stretch across thousands of miles of landscape; and borders have been established at every opportunity: national borders, state borders, jurisdictional borders and property lines. While these boundaries — both the physical boundaries and the more-or-less imaginary ones — have helped us organize and manage the resources of the land, they have severely impacted the wildlife we share space with. Decades of research has shown wildlife corridors, which refer to the routes animals take when moving across a landscape, are an important part of species survival. But large contiguous plots of land are becoming increasingly rare as development pushes into new areas, and there’s a need to protect those corridors if we want to limit impacts to those species.

News

Death highway: A massive oil boom in the Permian Basin has turned rural roads into deadly highways

By |

ROSWELL AND CARLSBAD — At one end of Pauline and Joe Ponce’s spacious dining room in Roswell lies a cabinet crowded with photographs and mementos of their son, Michael. An old wrestling match program rests amid snapshots of Michael with his daughter, his parents, his wife. Pauline lingers beside an image of Michael holding his then one-and-a-half-year-old son, captured in December 2017. “That was taken only two months before Michael died,” she said. On the morning of Feb.

2019 Legislative Session

Report: NM’s roadways in poor condition, which costs drivers

By |

It’s almost impossible to find a smooth ride in New Mexico. Most of the state’s major roads and highways are in poor or mediocre condition, and those potholes out there mean hundreds of dollars in additional fuel, repairs and other costs for the average driver, according to an annual survey published Wednesday. This may not be news for New Mexicans bouncing around on the state’s roads. But this year, the data come as lawmakers consider hundreds of millions of additional dollars in the budget for road repairs and debate raising the long-stagnant gas tax to pay for future maintenance. The report by The Road Information Program, or TRIP, says New Mexicans are already paying for the condition of the state’s highways.

Environment

Safe Passage: Getting wildlife where they need to go

By |

It can be scary to drive at night in rural New Mexico. There aren’t lights to see who might be on the side of the road, ready to race or saunter across. While we’re zooming along a ribbon of highway at 75 or 80 miles per hour—sometimes in a line of cars, sometimes all alone out on the highway—often, there are owls hunting, foxes looking for mice in the grassy median, coyotes bringing food home to the den, or elk on their way to water or higher ground. Even during the day, pronghorn or deer might dart across the road. When a car collides with an animal, it’s bad news for everyone.

autonomous vehicles

New Mexico readies for driverless vehicles

By |

Autonomous vehicles are coming. Soon—and New Mexico needs to be ready. That was the message from a recent summit on autonomous, or driverless, vehicles organized by the state Department of Transportation. Local officials, technology experts and even industry representatives all agreed legislators need to understand the technology before changing laws or other policies. Earlier this year, Sen. James White, R-Albuquerque, introduced a memorial asking NMDOT to organize the summit and get New Mexico ready for autonomous vehicles.

Roads

State ‘only got about half’ of money needed to fix roads

By |

A quarter of New Mexico’s roads are in bad condition according to a new report from a Washington D.C. nonprofit. And ripped up pavement and bumpy roads aren’t just an inconvenience, they’re also costly to car owners in the state. On average, bad roads, traffic congestion and poor traffic safety conditions cost Albuquerque drivers more than $1,800 each year, according to the report by the transportation policy research group TRIP. Released last week, TRIP’s “New Mexico Transportation By the Numbers” report is based on publicly available data from sources like the American Automobile Association, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration. Albuquerque’s roads are the worst for any city in the state, according to the report, with 34 percent of them in poor condition.