Road warrior: 'Scary situation' on Morris; a mysterious license plate

Alaina Mencinger, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
·2 min read
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Dec. 25—When stopped at a red light in the Northeast Heights, Mike Gorman noticed an intriguing license plate.

The plate was all white, save for a turquoise strip on the left, with the New Mexico Flag and the initials N.M.

"Have you seen anything like this?" Gorman asked.

I hadn't. So I asked New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division spokesperson Charlie Moore what the deal with the plate was.

There's a variety of available license plates in the state. Besides the classic yellow and turquoise Zia plates and black chile plate, there's also historic plates, city plates for Las Cruces and Santa Fe, and almost a dozen collegiate plates.

But the plate in question was still puzzling.

"It sure doesn't look like one of ours," Moore said in an email to the Journal. "But I'll check."

The plate isn't a state-issued plate, Moore continued. Even if the license plate is valid, and the registration sticker is up-to-date, the owner could still be cited.

Scary stripe situation: When Morris was repaved several years ago, reader Heather and her neighbors thought that something was missing: a center stripe from Candelaria to Menaul.

"It is quite dangerous, as no one knows exactly where the center of the road is and overcorrects, driving in the bike lane," Heather said in an email to the Journal.

At night, the road becomes a "scary situation," she said, which seems risky for bikers. When she and others wrote the city about the stripe, Heather said the response was that leaving the center stripe off forces drivers to slow down.

But Heather doesn't think that's happening.

"No one is driving slower," she said. "They are just driving outside the driving lane."

The Department of Municipal Development had a different explanation.

According to DMD spokesperson Dan Mayfield, the stripe on Morris was left off due to a lack of space, not to curb speed in the area. The repaving and striping project on Morris added a bike lane; the department determined it wasn't wide enough for a center stripe.

Median mania: New medians are coming to Monte Vista from Lomas to Campus.

The area is a hotspot for severe crashes. According to the city's map of high crash and injury areas, developed for the Vision Zero project which aims to reduce traffic deaths in Albuquerque the area, which sees about 5,700 cars daily, is above the regional average for severe crashes.

Eleven new, 200-foot medians will make the area safer, according to a DMD press release. Also included in the project is a new bike lane and new left-turn lanes.