There’s a double edged sword to this
problem. From south of Carlsbad, all
the way to Ft. Stockton, hwy 285 is
two lanes, and it’s bad almost the
entire length. (yes, even in Texas).
I’ve driven that highway traveling
between Houston and Roswell and in
the past 15 years, it progressively gets
worse. If, and when, something is put
into process to fix it, traffic is going
to get backed up due to single lanes
being blocked. It needs to be a 4 lane
highway, but our wonderful governor
Isn’t going to appease her more
conservative constituents, and will
instead, focus on roads running thru
her more liberal counties.
Good points.
I can’t remember the details on how and why it was improved, but Hwy 550 from Farmington to Bernalillo (I-25) used to be terrible like you describe Hwy 285. San Juan County is basically a conservative oasis in northern NM and I’ve been told that it took a Republican Governor to get it widened into a 4 lane.
I grew up in Rio Arriba County and the Democrat dominated politics has only gotten worse.
I had a job in the oil patch in the Fort Stockton area in November. I drove NM-18 then TX-18 south of state line in Texas. The road south of Jal, NM is abysmal on both sides of the border, especially from Jal to Kermit, TX. Single lane, full of deep potholes, traveled by very heavy semis, etc. Because we were short a pickup due to a collision with a deer, I needed to take my personal pickup. On the road, especially after dark, you can not see potholes and can’t avoid them due to heavy, continual traffic and lack of shoulders. When the job was over, I went to have a wheel alignment and found front end rods were bent. And I had a cracked windshield due to trucks traveling at 70 mph throwing up rocks from the potholes. Of course, all repairs were charged to the company.