New Mexico’s “Musical Highway” Plays America the Beautiful
A small stretch of road along old Route 66 / Hwy 333 near Tijeras, NM has been enabled with a musical ability. If you drive over a special rumble strip at exactly 45 miles per hour (no, not 40, not 50), you will be serenaded with a slightly asphalty rendition of the last few bars of America the Beautiful.
HOW TO GET THERE: From Albuquerque, at the Tramway/Central intersection, either hop on I-40 then exit to Rte 66 at Carnuel, or just get on Rte 66 right there at Tramway/Central and take it the whole way. Either way, after Rte 66 passes under I-40 (east of Carnuel), get ready and start looking for the blue signs. There is a sign reading “Musical Highway” that prepares you, then a sign reading “Reduce Speed to 45 mph” to get you in the proper speed zone. Arrows painted on the rumble strips show you where to actually place your tires. Note: The musical section is on the eastbound lane only.
If you watch the video above, you’ll see a second, shorter rumble strip after the first one. The first time I drove the Musical Highway, that second rumble strip played the Nationwide jingle. I kid you not. It was terrible and I felt somehow violated. But the second time I drove it (in the video above), the second rumble strip had been…. de-activated. THANK GOODNESS.
Rumor has it that the Musical Highway was created here as part of a Discovery Channel experiment in crowd control for a show to air soon, with the added benefit of getting drivers to slow to the speed limit, at least for a little while. In my experience (ahem), drivers just speed back up when the music stops. But at least we are being safe for a little while.
UPDATE: We indeed saw the episode of Crowd Control that featured the NM Musical Highway. Pretty cool, and I was happy to see that the jingle was included for the episode only. Plus, Crowd Control has become one of our favorite shows.
