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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Varela

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/18/2007

HB 1252

SHORT TITLE

Require Coordination of Traffic Signals

SB

ANALYST Moser

ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT (dollars in thousands)

FY07

FY08

FY09 3 Year

Total Cost

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

Total

$3,750.0

Non-

Recurring State Road

Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates Appropriation in the General Appropriation Act

Relates to Appropriation in the General Appropriation Act

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

NM Department of Transportation (NMDOT)

NM Municipal League

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 1252 requires a municipality with a home-rule charter pursuant to Article 10, Section

6 of the constitution of New Mexico and with a population over sixty thousand according to the

last federal decennial census, in a class A county with a 2006 valuation over five billion dollars

($5,000,000,000) but under ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000), to set or program all controller

units, which are part of traffic signal controller assemblies, for signal coordination in order to

create a signal system that will provide for continuous or nearly continuous movement of traffic

at a definite speed.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The NM Municipal League offers that depending upon the software requirements, this could be a

rather costly undertaking for municipalities.

The NMDOT indicates that the fiscal implication to the NMDOT would be restricted to those

signalized intersections on state roadways in the affected municipalities. There are 1350 signals

statewide. NMDOT estimates that approximately 350 - 500 of these would need to be assessed

House Bill 1252 – Page

2

for interoperability and other communications systems improvements. The estimated retrofit cost

is $7500/location with a total estimated cost of $3.75 million.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

NMDOT would be required to retrofit controllers if they are incompatible with existing cities’

systems to communicate with them, as well as installing communications infrastructure. The

NM Municipal League points out that this bill will have a bigger impact on municipalities than

the State.

In determining the synchronization of traffic signalization typically engineering studies are

utilized to determine which signals should be linked together to create zones. Communications

analyses are also an important consideration in determining how signals are connected.

Additionally, central system software will be required to allow communications among the

different systems and zones. The collective cost for the aforementioned items may be

significant.

GM/csd