Northeast Heights residents question re-do on road project
Posted at: 09/10/2012 6:59 PM
By: Stuart Dyson, Eyewitness News 4
Some Eyewitness News 4 viewers are wondering whether taxpayers are getting taken for a ride with a road project in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights.
Ii is certainly an orange barrel classic: workers tear up the road for weeks, fix the whole thing up, pave the whole thing over - then a month later they come back and tear it all up again.
Relax.
The contractor got the road project on Eubank Boulevard and Academy Road NE wrong the first time around. The City is making the company re-do some of the heavy-duty concrete work on Academy - about $50,000 worth of this $125,000 project. The taxpayers are not footing the bill, even though some of us who drive through the city's asphalt obstacle course every day have developed some interesting theories about the orange barrel epidemic.
"Construction all over town, and it all seems to be taking a really long time," mused driver Mark Ferris. "I dunno. I personally believe that it's got something to do with the economy, trying to create false jobs and stuff like that. Trying to create something for people to do and make some money and show the City is making jobs for people."
"I think we'll have the most beautiful medians in the country," laughed driver, Daina Wade. "It's all been median work that I've seen. But I don't have a problem with it. It's far from the worst thing we do even if we don't really need it all that bad."
There was a delay in re-doing the Academy job because of another big project nearby at Wyoming Boulevard and San Antonio Drive NE. Traffic engineers said they did not want drivers to have to deal with two major headaches going full blast at the same time.
The Academy concrete re-do should finish early next week, but then workers will re-pave Academy, east of Eubank. the whole thing should be done in two-and-a-half weeks.
So the taxpayers are off the hook on this one. The contractor eats the additional cost. It is his dime - but it's our time - navigating through the orange barrels of summer.
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