The $41 million Montezuma-Cortez High School opens for students on Aug. 25, and in the interim, the city of Cortez and Empire Electric are planning to put in seven new streetlights on a thoroughfare that leads to the new $41 million Montezuma-Cortez High School.
Public Works director Phil Johnson said at the June 9 City Council workshop that the department has received a proposal from Empire to install streetlights in two dark areas likely to be traversed by school-bound pedestrians: South Sligo Street and along Seventh Street near the Southern Bluffs neighborhood.
Empire has offered to install the light poles and lights for $42,500, providing that the city excavate roughly 2,500 cubic feet of trench for two transformers and the poles.
The plan would entail installing three lights on South Sligo and four lights on Seventh Street near South Madison Street.
“This is a really good first step to illuminating that corridor leading to the new school,” said Johnson.
While lighting an area that could soon see increased bike and pedestrian traffic was largely viewed positively, Cortez resident Gerald Vincent and council member Bob Archibeque voiced concerns about the lack of paved sidewalks along Seventh for those heading west.
“There’s going to be a lot of kids walking, that are going to that building. Any time there’s an event, you’re going to see a lot of kids walking that walk, and if they have to get back to the west, there’s no sidewalk. I’m thinking about the safety of those kids,” said Archibeque.
Public Works is generating estimates on completing the sidewalk from the Seventh Street bridge to South Sligo, with either Class 6 gravel or concrete. It’s likely that the path would be gravel until the next budgetary cycle, said City Manager Shane Hale, adding that the plans were to make it wide enough for a “multi-use path”, to accommodate those on bikes or foot.
“It is our plan to at least this year connect up with the with a gravel path to where that sidewalk ends so that it’s all connected. We don’t have money in the budget this year to pave it, but it will be an off-road walking path for those kids,” said Hale.
Johnson also noted that he’s inquiring about the cost of installing solar-powered lighting along the path.