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What should be done to provide bicycle, pedestrian and equestrian paths along upper Meadowlark Lane between Loma Larga and Rio Rancho? The roadway was re-designed and rebuilt more than two years ago with the promise that a new effort would be made to learn what villagers wished to have along the road shoulders. That had already been determined a long time back based on extensive public involvement, including a consultant conducting a planning charette, but the resulting 2013 plan was scrapped when it was learned the proposed path along the north side of the road could not use funding contingent on compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Finally, the public input effort has resumed with a meeting in the Village Council Chambers Thursday, July 8. Results of that meeting could not be included in this issue.
According to Public Works Director Mike Chavez in 2019, approvals were in place for the bike and pedestrian trail along the westbound lane, although no start date was announced. That part of the overall project was delayed for a re-design of a paved bike trail to satisfy the N.M. Transportation Department’s concerns about compliance with ADA. The original design had problematic slopes both east-west and north-south at the same locations near the top of West Meadowlark. Resolution of that issue was to have been resolved by modifying several driveways on private property to reduce the steepness of approaches to the proposed paved trail. But that never happened. Village Administrator Ron Curry said more than a year ago that the best work-around was to use the Village’s own money, rather than federal-state funds that might require ADA compliance. Although Curry did not link the two, that substitution may have been made possible after Corrales received funding last month through the state highway department’s Municipal Arterial Program (MAP).
The upper Meadowlark project received intense, and often contentious, public input since it was first proposed around 1990. In 2010, the Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG) allocated $160,000 for an Upper Meadowlark bike trail connecting Corrales and Rio Rancho, but the Village Council turned the money back. West Meadowlark residents strongly opposed the project as then proposed, arguing the funds were inadequate to address stormwater drainage problems that might result. At the June 28, 2011 Village Council meeting, councillors voted unanimously to send back $160,000 for proposed trails. But almost immediately councillors unanimously resolved to ask MRCOG for a new grant to construct trails along Meadowlark or some other road that could connect to Rio Rancho’s bike paths. The council’s decision to turn back the MRCOG grant came in a package of related resolutions. The first re-allocated the funds that the Village would use for its local match to go with MRCOG’s $160,000.
The $51,000 which had been tagged to go with the grant (which was originally targeted to complete construction of Loma Larga) was re-directed to construct bike lanes for the extension of Don Julio Road in the Far Northwest Sector out to Highway 528 at its intersection with Northern Boulevard in Rio Rancho. That decision alone killed the Meadowlark bike trail project, so the following resolution to turn back the MRCOG grant was pre-determined; there was no other potential money for the required local match. Then-Councillor John Alsobrook took a longer view on West Meadowlark Lane’s problems. “We’ve learned quite a bit about the history of this section of road. It had stop signs put in and then it had stop signs taken out. It had a right-turn lane that was put in, and the right-turn lane was taken out. It had speed humps put in and taken out, and speed tables were put in.†In a revision to its initial recommendations, the consulting firm hired to suggest ways to improve upper Meadowlark Lane called for bike riders to use the same downhill driving lane as autos, or divert to the future pedestrian path along the south side of the re-configured roadway, now completed.