Crest Highway, the well-traveled, scenic road up the Sandia Mountains, is more dangerous now than ever – despite what the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) says – according to state Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park).
There have been three crashes and a fatality on Crest in the last few weeks, reports by ABC7 KOAT, and they've come after NMDOT “fog-sealed” the road for safety in early June.
"Gov. Lujan’s NMDOT administration says the Crest Highway is fine," Lord posted on Twitter late last week. "No warning signs will be put up even with a fatality and several other crashes since they 'fog-sealed' the road'"
The road was closed for two days in early June for NMDOT to treat the road, according to ABC7 KOAT. A "fog seal," as explained in a NMDOT Facebook post, is the application of a specially formulated asphalt emulsion, a thin liquid oil, to an existing asphalt pavement surface.
NMDOT further explains that it gets its name from its spray application, sometimes referred to as "fogging."
Fog seals are low-cost and are used to restore flexibility to an existing HMA pavement surface. They may be able to temporarily postpone the need for a surface treatment or non-structural overlay, as described by Pavement Interactive.
In the ABC7 KOAT report, a DOT spokesman said that putting that particular seal on the road is common practice and they've been doing it for two years, adding that recently the motorcycle unit for the Albuquerque police department trained on the road without any problems.
"What I want more than anything else is the DOT to fully investigate what is going on with this road,” Lord told KOAT. “Why we have had two motorcycle crashes and one fatality and [for them] to take it seriously.”
