Still Notorious
Residents, motorists hopeful U.S. 491 improvements are near

Hitchikers walk along Highway 491 on Wednesday afternoon. Hitchikers are one of the many hazards that lurk on the highway, which is slated for improvements soon.[Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

Cars make their way down a stretch on Highway 491 near Naschitti on Wednesday afternoon. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

WINDOW ROCK — Last week, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. said he is pleased with the progress that is being made to get the improvements to U.S. Highway 491 started.

The New Mexico portion of the highway, which begins in Gallup and runs through the Navajo reservation, is notorious for high volume traffic and speeding vehicles. Formerly U.S. 666, it is sometimes referred to as “The Devil’s Highway.”

The improvements cannot come quick enough for residents and people who work at businesses along the highway who have been saying for years that the dangerous road needs to be expanded to a four-lane highway to Shiprock.

“It’s been dangerous,” Victoria Livingston, who lives in Mexican Springs, said. “By the Twin Lakes Chapter, it’s expanded and it’s better. I think they need to extend it to four lanes all the way to Shiprock.”

The turn off to Mexican Springs is located on a stretch of U.S. 491 where the speed limit is 65 miles per hour and there are only two lanes for north and south bound traffic.

“Especially when you’re turning to Mexican Springs and there’s a semi behind you, it’s scary,” she said.

Gil Damon from Twin Lakes said he used to work in Farmington and would see numerous accidents on his way to work, including one where he saw a woman’s head had been decapitated in a collision.

“I just turned around and went home,” he said.

Damon said that his daughter’s best friend, an honor student who had just married, recently died on U.S. 491.

“That might not have happened if it was four-lane,” he said.

Nick Denetdale, who lives in Tohatchi, has been waiting for more than 10 years for the improvements to be made.

“There’s always accidents on this road,” he said. “People always pass people and they cut it real close. Sometime there are blind curves and they still pass.”

He said he sees accidents all the time as a result of vehicles passing other automobiles near his house.

“Maybe if there were four lanes, they wouldn’t have to get in each other’s way,” he said. “People always drive too fast and they are not careful when passing. Since I’ve been small, it’s always been like that.”

Some vendors in Tohatchi also said that they have been waiting for 10 to 20 years for the improvements to be made.

“We see a lot of ambulances. They’re always running that way,” one vendor said pointing north.

Shirley Dez, from Naschitti Trading Post, said that she did not foresee upcoming construction activities having any effect on business.

“On holidays, we get business from the highway and in the summer tourists come around,” Dez said.

She said that the improvements are very necessary for the community with the high volume of traffic that runs through it.

The project to improve the highway had been at a standstill when the state of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation could not agree on how much the nation should contribute.

However, on Nov. 2, Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly met with Secretary Rhonda G. Faught to present the Navajo Nation’s proposal to resolve issues that had held up progress on the road improvements from Shiprock to Yah-Ta-Hey. The Nation proposed contributing $8 million over four years to the project, in addition to $2 million in in-kind services.

Faught told the vice president that she was pleased with the proposal. According to Navajo Nation communications director George Hardeen, Faught recently sent a letter to the president and vice president to reiterate the Transportation Department’s satisfaction with the proposal.

“I am very pleased that we have successfully resolved negotiations for this project and look forward to working with you further so that improvements to U.S. 491 can be constructed and the highway made safer for the traveling public,” she wrote.

Shirley said that he appreciates her correspondence to the Navajo Nation.

“No one person or entity can do it all by themselves,” Shirley said. “All of us use this important road, and by working together, I’m pleased we’ll see the needed improvements to it.”

Shelly said that the executive branch has done its part.
“Now it’s up to our Navajo lawmakers, our oversight committees, to approve the process. The ball’s in their court now,” he said.

Hardeen said that discussions on the terms and conditions are continuing and that the state would have to hire a contractor before schedules are announced.

According to the Office of the President, the Navajo Nation Council’s Resources Committee was to consider the terms and conditions for approval earlier this week. The agreement must be approved by the proper oversight committees before the $100 million project will be able to begin.