From left, county employees David Padilla, Devin Killoy, Sef Houston and Earnest Archuleta lean on equipment Monday and talk while Ivan P. Trujillo, county engineering service manager, gives a presentation on the Northeast/Southeast Connector Roads Project near the Spur Trail Trailhead.
Susan Coulter, center, and others look Monday at the maps of the proposed roads and trails for the Northeast/Southeast Connector Roads Project during its groundbreaking ceremony. Coulter lives downtown but said she often cycles in the area. “The idea that you will be able to go around the whole thing and that they planned for cyclists and hikers is fantastic,” she said.
From left, county employees David Padilla, Devin Killoy, Sef Houston and Earnest Archuleta lean on equipment Monday and talk while Ivan P. Trujillo, county engineering service manager, gives a presentation on the Northeast/Southeast Connector Roads Project near the Spur Trail Trailhead.
Santa Fe County is starting the construction phase of a more than $20 million infrastructure project 20 years in the making, which aims to provide better access to Santa Fe Community College and accommodate future growth south of the city.
Dozens of residents, county staff members and officials gathered Monday afternoon in a tent at the Spur Trailhead for a celebration kicking off construction of what has been called the Northeast/Southeast Connector Roads Project.
The project includes nearly 4 miles of new road and six roundabouts, with waterlines and broadband cables buried throughout. Bike lanes alongside the roads and separate, paved trails will be constructed along with the connector routes.
Count Manager Greg Shaffer said including those amenities and infrastructure as roads are built “embodies the concept of sustainable growth.”
The “northeast connector” involves construction of roadway and two roundabout intersections between Dinosaur Trail and Rabbit Road, giving drivers a direct route between them. Currently, drivers traveling west from Rabbit Road are required to drive through the Oshara Village subdivision to reach Dinosaur Trail or busy Richards Avenue.
The “southeast connector” will serve as an alternate route from Rabbit Road to Avenida del Sur to reduce traffic congestion on Richards Avenue. This route also will provide secondary emergency access to the community college, according to the county.
County Engineering Services Manager Ivan Trujillo said construction will be complete by the end of the year.
Susan Coulter, center, and others look Monday at the maps of the proposed roads and trails for the Northeast/Southeast Connector Roads Project during its groundbreaking ceremony. Coulter lives downtown but said she often cycles in the area. “The idea that you will be able to go around the whole thing and that they planned for cyclists and hikers is fantastic,” she said.
The project will be the first to adhere to the county’s “dig once policy,” which Trujillo said requires forethought about all types of infrastructure that would need to be installed under new roads to prevent digging them up in the future.
The policy requires “collaboration in understanding what the growth area is going to need over a certain amount of time,” he said. “Once you understand that, then you can fund what you’ll need for the future.”
The new road and bike path will provide a much-needed second route to the community college, County Commissioner Hank Hughes wrote in an email before the event. “The bike trail will be part of a trail system connecting the Community College District to downtown Santa Fe that will eventually go all the way out to Lamy going south and perhaps as far as the Rio Grande going west,” he wrote.
He thanked nearby landowners for donating 55 acres to make the project possible. One of them is Julie Villegas, who owns more than 60 acres between Richards Avenue and Rabbit Road and donated much of the acreage needed for the northeast connector.
She said she has been waiting for the construction county to move forward so she can begin work on a development to be called Corrillo de Vida Hermosa, which is expected to include a day care, funeral home, townhouses, retail, a cemetery and “hopefully a grocery store,” she said.
Villegas expects the development to be built in the next few years.
Area residents who attended Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony expressed excitement about the project.
Rancho Viejo residents Sunny and Benny Benedetti, who moved to Santa Fe from Denver last year and ride bikes on area trails, said they were happy to see the construction start.
“I think you’ll see a lot more people using the new trails,” Sunny Benedetti said. “Coming from Colorado, where there is a lot of trail infrastructure, we’re so pleased to see that happening here in Santa Fe.”
“We want quality development,” Benny Benedetti added. “It’s better to have services in the neighborhood than to have it become a suburban, bedroom community.”
Another cyclist couple, Susan and Yates Coulter, said they live in downtown Santa Fe but ride their bikes to the Rancho Viejo area often. Although they have visited restaurants and retail businesses in the subdivision, the primary draw of Rancho Viejo for the Coulters is the plentiful amount of open space.
Susan gestured toward a map of the planned roadways. “The idea that you will be able to go around the whole thing and that they planned for cyclists and hikers is fantastic,” she said.
Planning for the connector roads began more than 20 years ago when county officials realized there would be a need for new routes as the Community College District continued to grow. Over the years, recommendations were made to create the new road system, and in 2011, the county conducted a location study. A year later, voters approved general obligation bonds that included $5 million for the road improvements.
Between 2013 and 2015, the county conducted an alignment and corridor study and had multiple public meetings about the project. Progress then seemed to stall until 2019, when the county revealed a concept plan.
The project’s total budget is a little more than $21 million, Trujillo said, which includes $6.8 million from the state Department of Transportation.
Members of the Rancho Viejo South Community Association raised concerns in 2022 about whether the county’s plans could realistically accommodate the growth in the area.
Trujillo said Monday there were “minor changes in the design based on comments received but not much was changed.”
“There was good dialogue,” he said. “There were questions about accommodating growth in the area. The project as proposed at that time is still what’s going forward in construction.”
