Street Car Project to Affect Traffic on Mesa for Next 2 Months

If any part of your daily commute requires you taking Mesa Street by UTEP, the next phase of the streetcar project is going to affect you.

Crews have begun laying rail across Mesa Street at Glory Road and Baltimore Drive, a process that will take the rest of the summer to complete.

That means the slow-and-go traffic on an already busy part of Mesa is going to get even slower. So in an effort to impact and inconvenience motorists as little as possible, the project will be broken down into three phases.

• Phase 1 will run through the week of July 5, 2017: Glory Road will be closed between Oregon Street and Mesa Street; Baltimore Drive will be closed to between Mesa Street and Stanton Street. Crews will complete rail approaching Mesa Street on both Glory and Baltimore. Turn lanes from Mesa onto both of those streets will be closed.

• Phase 2 will begin the week of July 5, 2017 and last approximately three weeks: Mesa Street will be reduced to a single inside lane in each direction as crews begin laying rail toward the center of the intersection.

• Phase 3 will begin immediately after Phase 2 is completed and last approximately four weeks: Mesa Street will be reduced to a single outside lane in each direction as crews join the two sections of rail placed in Phase II. Baltimore will be open to local traffic only from Stanton Street.

If you want to avoid the area altogether, consider taking an alternate route such as Stanton Street or Sun Bowl Drive.