KASAroads's Blog

It’s that time of year when posole and crackling piñon scent the air, and a lot of orange barrels fly south for the winter only to return in the spring.

Road work slows down when it gets too cold to lay asphalt, which is not to say construction delays go away completely. One new twist is railroad work slowing cars and trucks as Rail Runner Express track construction closes lanes on Interstate 25 in both directions near Santa Fe next week.

Folks at the NMDOT say they’ll open everything up by early Wednesday afternoon to get out of the way of holiday travelers. The DOT announcement doesn’t say exactly where the lane closures are presumably figuring motorists know them when they see them.

The Rail Runner tracks are intersecting I-25 below the La Bajada rest area and running down to median much of the way to Santa Fe. Trains are supposed to be operating by late 2008, but given the well-publicized money problems at the DOT, a new fight with the feds over the accuracy of DOT accounting and a likely funding dust-up when the Legislature convenes in two months, we’ll see.

And I-25 south of the I-40 interchange in Albuquerque is going to be down to one lane overnight Sunday into Monday so the contractor landscaping the Big I can haul in material. That closes the Martin Luther King Boulevard onramp to I-25 from around 9 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. Monday. The DOT says use the frontage road as a detour, but it’s a long way and a number of stop lights to the next I-25 north onramp at Comanche or to I-40 at University or 4th Street.

You can follow road work around the state at nmroads.com.

Meteorologists are still salivating over the big storm about to blow out of the Gulf of Alaska and ride an unusual dip in the jet stream all the way to New Mexico in time for Thanksgiving. But it now looks like any snow may only clip the northeast on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that includes I-25 from around Las Vegas into Colorado. No telling what this disturbance will to to travelers plans as it moves east from here.

The National Weather Service says another system tracks in as the first turkey leftovers come out, but that may go north, too. You can thank the La Niña weather pattern if your winter sport is shoveling, or curse it if you’re a skier.