A new report by a national traffic study organization says New Mexico motorists lose $3-billion dollars a year on roads due to traffic congestion and deteriorating roads.
The report by TRIP, a Washington, DC based national transportation research nonprofit says that over half of the locally and state maintained roads in New Mexico are in poor or mediocre condition.
Five-percent of the bridges are poor or structurally deficient and New Mexico has the third highest traffic fatality rate in the country.
TRIP Director of Policy and Research Rocky Moretti with vehicular traffic coming back to pre-pandemic levels,now is the time to focus on improving infrastructure.
“It’s really an opportunity and a challenge to make sure we have the transportation system that’s reliable, safe and well maintained," He said. "We’re going to need to really move forward in the direction we’d all like to move in.”
Albuquerque State Senator Michael Padilla says he wants to look at the safety factors of the study. He says in and around his district is seeing some of the greatest growth in New Mexico and the infrastructure needs to keep up to meet its growing needs.