Scenes Thursday of road construction underway to create the turn lanes east of the N.M. 502 roundabout in Los Alamos. Interestingly, they pave the road first, then cut the asphalt where the turn lane goes and remove the broken up asphalt, then put in the curbing, and finally repave the new turn lane. The operator of one excavators lifting up the cut asphalt with its nice clean edges out of the new turn lane, after which, he loads the now broken pieces of asphalt from the turn lane into the bucket of the other excavator for removal. Photo by Ed Birnbaum

Scene of the nearly finished result with the turn lane cleaned up and ready for installation of concrete curbing. The last step will be to pave it. Photo by Ed Birnbaum