Ben Luján has long been a statesman short on the braggadocio associated with most leaders of the New Mexico Legislature, and his gentlemanly traits have served him and his Northern New Mexico constituents well.

But the modesty he's showing over state highway officialdom's kind treatment of his tract of land along the Santa Fe-Española road strains the credulity of his most avid supporters. After all, he's Speaker of the House of Representatives — arguably the second or third most powerful person in state politics.

The highway guys are in the process of, uh, improving the stretch of U.S. 84/285 between Española and Pojoaque, where an already widened, limited-access route was forged as far as Santa Fe to make things safer for the nuclear-garbage trucks between Los Alamos and the Waste Isolation Pilot Project down near Carlsbad.

Luján owns a little property in the path of the new project, just north of the Pojoaque Pueblo border. He's been resisting offers for slices of that land the state seems to think it needs for a nice, but not pressingly necessary, frontage road.

He has declined a $59,000 offer for less than half an acre's worth of land — and that's his right; private property is certain to become more valuable as Santa Fe and Española sprawl toward each other. Today's modest tract out in the sagebrush and juniper might be tomorrow's commercial bonanza; maybe it's worth more.

But at the same time Luján and a few others fight the state over right-of-way value, the Department of Transportation says it's changed its mind about where to build one of few interchanges: Instead of the Arroyo Seco-La Puebla intersection, where high-speed traffic today meets a stoplight, the staters say they'll locate it way up the hill to the south, where it would serve — no purpose at all; at least not now. But let's say Pojoaque Pueblo decides to develop housing there, or yet another motorist attraction. Voila! There's a handy on-and-off ramp. And less than half a mile away lies Luján's land.

Verrry interesting, as TV comics are wont to say: The safety of folks from La Puebla and Chimayó on their way to Santa Fe goes out the window in favor of yet another "mystery interchange" like the one up the road at Cuyamungué.

For years, we've been wondering what kind of development is planned there — by whom, with what ties to government ...
From time to time, there's been talk of a new road to connect 84/285 with Chimayó-bound N.M. 503, diverting lots of traffic from bucolic Nambé. That might be a future use of the relocated interchange — but our state's too broke to be plunking down new roads, now or anytime soon.

Highway officials, who fudged figures to justify the semi-freeway from casino country into Santa Fe, say they've seen few crashes at the La Puebla turnoff — so they might as well stay with the stoplight there, and build a mighty structure to serve, well, a frontage road; a goodly number of homes have gone up on the hills and in the hollows east of the highway, and there are a few businesses to boot — so why not put up a cloverleaf or its variations?

Well, because if you do, ingenieros, you're going to be suspected of favoritism toward the speaker and Pojoaque Pueblo leaders, if not dereliction of duty.

And here's where the modesty comes in: He wasn't involved in the relocation decision, he insists — and the transportation department can do as it wishes.

So this is, for Luján and the highly developed pueblo, simply a happy coincidence? Could be. But the speaker can't simply back off and let this travesty take place. He should call for more public hearings on the road plan, since earlier ones were farcical. This is a chance for the department to revive its credibility.