Sunland Park officials warn state-line road closures could complicate emergency response
Sunland Park police and fire officials say road closures along the Texas-New Mexico line could delay emergency response and leave residents with limited evacuation routes.
Police chief says residents could be trapped during a major evacuation as gates, bollards and a traffic diverter restrict crossings into El Paso
Damien Willis, Organ Mountain News
SUNLAND PARK - Gates, bollards and a traffic diverter installed along neighborhood streets at the New Mexico-Texas line could slow emergency crews and leave some Sunland Park residents with few ways out during a major evacuation, city public safety officials warned this week.
Sunland Park Police Chief Kiri Daines told the City Council on Tuesday that routine police operations have not been significantly affected by the closures. Her larger concern is what happens when conditions are anything but routine.
If an active threat, hazardous-materials incident or gas leak forced a mass evacuation while Sunland Park Drive was also unavailable, Daines said residents in the affected area would have little remaining access.
“Those residents there are trapped,” Daines told councilors. “We would have to contact the city of El Paso and get Frontera open.”
The warning is the latest development in a months-long dispute over streets that cross an unusual municipal and state boundary where neighborhoods in Sunland Park and El Paso effectively run together.
A diagonal traffic diverter constructed by El Paso at Frontera Road and San Gabriel now requires traffic headed east from New Mexico to turn onto San Gabriel, continue through Futurity Drive and reach Sunland Park Drive, City Manager Mario Juarez-Infante said Tuesday.
Additional gates or bollards have restricted other connections near the state line, including Boy Scout Lane and other neighborhood streets.
Damien Willis
Police, fire chiefs assess emergency access
Daines said police officers do not have keys to the gates and likely will not receive them. If officers needed to cross at a gated location during an incident that did not also draw a fire response, police could have to wait for firefighters from one of the two cities to open the gate.
“Trust me, I’ll put a car through it if I have to,” Daines said, but added that would not be an option at some of the heavier barriers near Frontera and San Gabriel.
She also pointed to a community center and recreation area near the boundary where address and jurisdictional confusion already complicates access. Reaching the property by alternate routes takes additional time, she said, while another possible approach is obstructed by a roughly 6- to 8-foot rock wall and chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire.
“If there’s a drowning or a fire or severe active shooter event, it is going to take time,” Daines said.
Sunland Park Fire Chief Daniel Medrano said his department has been coordinating with El Paso fire officials over access to the gates and bollards.
Temporary combination padlocks are currently being used, with fire agencies able to access them, Medrano said. Officials are working toward a more permanent shared key-vault system that would allow emergency crews from either city to open the barriers.
Medrano said Sunland Park firefighters have also familiarized themselves with the gates and tested their operation.
The need for cross-border access is not unusual in the neighborhood, he said.
“Even though there is a state line, an imaginary line in that neighborhood,” Medrano said, emergency calls from El Paso residents can sometimes be routed through Doña Ana County dispatch and vice versa.
“To have that ability to move back and forth is important,” he said.
The arrangements are not foolproof.
Medrano said a resident emailed him Tuesday morning with a photograph showing that a bolt and washers had apparently been installed on one gate after a lock was removed. He notified El Paso officials.
Fire crews could break through a gate if necessary, Medrano said, although heavier bollards would be more difficult and would cost responders time.
Cities say permanent answer is not more closures
Juarez-Infante said Sunland Park and El Paso officials met roughly three weeks ago to discuss the problem and agreed on one central point.
“The long-term solution is not roadway closures,” he said.
Sunland Park has since begun developing the scope for a regional traffic impact study examining the area. Juarez-Infante said city officials met Tuesday morning with the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization and New Mexico Border Authority to discuss the study’s scope, cost and timeline.
The Border Authority has offered to fund a significant portion of the work, he said.
Officials are also considering expanding an existing contract with HDR, the consultant working on the South Connector Road Phase 2 study. That project is being administered through the El Paso MPO because the transportation corridor affects both New Mexico and Texas.
The Sunland Park City Council on Tuesday also reauthorized nearly $150,000 in remaining general obligation bond money for planning and design work on Futurity Drive.
City documents say Futurity lacks adequate drainage, has poor pavement and was not designed to handle increasing industrial and passenger traffic generated by development to the north and northwest.
Sunland Park has received $4.5 million through the New Mexico Finance Authority’s Colonias Infrastructure Fund, along with local matching money, for reconstruction of Futurity Drive from Sunland Park Drive to San Gabriel. Construction is expected to begin in early 2027.
Cross-border traffic concerns predate the barriers
The dispute over the physical barriers comes against a longer history of concern over development and traffic along the state line.
On Sept. 3, 2025, the El Paso City Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing a memorandum of understanding with Sunland Park intended to improve coordination over development near the shared boundary.
The resolution said the two cities wanted to assess the effects of new development near the state line to mitigate cross-jurisdictional traffic problems, protect public safety, improve quality of life and support transportation planning.
It also described infrastructure along the border as interdependent and said better communication was necessary to manage development and its impacts.
The 2025 resolution does not say the agreement authorized the gates, bollards or Frontera Road diverter, and records reviewed by Organ Mountain News do not establish what specific engineering or policy decision led El Paso to install the restrictions.
Organ Mountain News asked El Paso officials Wednesday morning what traffic, neighborhood or public-safety problem the measures were intended to address, when the decision was made, which department approved it and whether it was connected to the 2025 memorandum of understanding.
A response had not been received as of late Wednesday morning.
For Daines, the immediate issue is less about who ultimately decides whether the barriers stay than whether emergency responders can get through them when seconds matter.
“For day-to-day, we’re OK unless something really bad happens,” she said. “And then of course, that’s always when something really bad happens.”
Damien Willis is founder and editor of Organ Mountain News. If you have a personal story to share or a lead we should follow up on, reach out at OrganMountainNews@gmail.com or connect with him on X at @damienwillis.
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