Goodbye ABQ Ride, Hola España

I have not posted for a long time. This has been due to the fact that I have been extremely busy working at the ABQ Ride offices and preparing to study abroad in Alcala de Henares, España.

This summer, I had a paid internship at ABQ Ride. During my time there, I managed to accomplish my major goal: to resign the ABQ Ride System Map. To give you an idea of the major changes I made to the system map, here is the old one:



As you can see, it is hard to read, cluttered and complicated. Here is my new one:



If you want a direct link to the map on the ABQ Ride website, here is the location.

My priorities for the revised map were an easy to read key and cleaner, less cluttered lines. Another priority I had was showing a better distinction between the lower frequency routes and the higher frequency routes.

Interestingly enough, almost as soon as I was done with the new map, Jarrett Walker of Human Transit wrote a great post about the importance of frequency-based transit maps. Local blogger John P. of Carfree in 'Burque wrote a post in response to the Human Transit post; it included an ABQ Ride Frequency Map. Johns map happened to include many of the elements I added to the new map. This entire situation highlights the potential power of the interconnected Internet to influence ideas and policy.

Though I admit my new map is not perfect, it was the best I could do with the time and resources provided to me.

In addition, this summer I also created 4 other ABQ Ride maps for each of the major system transfer/transit centers: Alvarado, Uptown, Northwest and Central & Unser. Other than the Alvarado map, none of these maps previously existed in any form. I hope these documents can help people more easily navigate the ABQ Ride system.

This summer, I learned many things about life in the office, transit planning, politics, bureaucracy, transit funding, the City of Albuquerque, ABQ Ride and many other things. There is one very important point I would like to write about at this juncture; it is a major difference between the transit system in Tucson (SunTran, which serves an average of 13,534 daily riders) and ABQ Ride (which serves an average of 7,948 daily riders).*

Since both metro areas have a very similar population (and similar demographic indicators as well), one would expect similar ridership. What gives?

Local geography helps to explain the differences: in Albuquerque, the city is divided up by 2 major interstates (1-25 and I-40) + Paseo del Norte + the Rio Grande river basin; in Tucson, the street grid is relatively well connected, with the only major freeway (I-10) skirting the edge of town.

There is also another reason for the difference:

Regional vs. local.

Tucson has a single REGIONAL transportation system. This means that there is one service provider for all the local transportation needs. This makes sense, as Tucson is a relatively small isolated metropolis.

Albuquerque, on the other hand has both a REGIONAL and LOCAL transit provider: ABQ Ride is local, while Rio Metro (the group running the Rail Runner) is regional. This means that funding is DIVIDED between these separate agencies.

How can Albuquerque expect to create a seamless, efficient network when the cash is split up between two different agencies? Though this issue may not be the deciding factor behind the ridership differences in these two cities, I believe it is an important issue that should be discussed by local leaders. After all, I'm not sure Tucson would have received federal dollars for their modern streetcar project without the unified force of a REGIONAL transportation system.

This was my major observation about ABQ Ride vs. Tucson/Suntran vs. regionalism/localism vs. transit networks in general.



Anyways, that all has come to an end and I am now in Spain. I will be here for the remainder of the year, studying Spanish and other assorted things. I will try to blog as often as possible, but I will be studying full time so we shall see.

So, as always, IT'S TIME FOR A TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION!

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*All the data used was acquired from the Brookings Institute website from the interactive State of Metropolitan America Indicator Map. If you have not played around with this incredible interactive data set DO SO NOW! It is chock full of interesting, interactive demographic data from across the United States. Have fun!

Back At It from Urbanquerque

After not posting for over one month, I am trying to get back into it. I have had so many ideas and adventures that it has been hard for me to figure out how to turn them into some sort of written form. Alas, without trying there would be no success.

My living situation for this coming month is urban and unique: I am spending the month living yards away from the University of New Mexico (UNM) in a 1950's style suburban house in the Nob Hill neighborhood. My reasons for living down here are
a) my downtown summer job at ABQ Ride and
b) the fact that I am starting summer school tommorrow at UNM. I have no car for the summer so living in the far eastern part of theNE Heights with my family would be impractical.

The cost of living here in Albuquerque is extremely cheap. Since I am living so close to transit and bike-friendly areas, my transportation costs are ZERO. This is due to the fact that I am working at ABQ Ride this summer (they provided me with a free bus pass) and the fact that my father is letting me borrow his fantastic old-skool road bike.

My quality of life down here is amazing. I bike pretty much everywhere and go on long bike rides every evening as the sun sets and the earth cools down. I buy groceries (mostly from the nearby Sunflower Market) and cook almost all my own food, saving lots of cash. Basically, my only expenses are rent and the occasional grocery trip.

Most people believe that living carfree in burque is impossible; I am proud to say that it is entirely possible (in certain parts of the city) and continues to get easier.

CNM and ABQ Ride: Working Together?

For everyone reading this post not from Albuquerque, CNM is the local community college in the Albuquerque metro area. ABQ Ride is the local transportation agency in the city of Albuquerque.

CNM and ABQ Ride do not have best relationship.

Sure, there are a few ABQ Ride routes that access the CNM campuses. Sure, ABQ Ride acknowledges the existence of CNM. However, compared to the amount of support received from ABQ Ride by UNM, almost no attention is payed to CNM. After all, the 3 Rapid Ride routes all pass by UNM.

How many CNM campuses are served by even one Rapid Ride route?

Hint:0

A closer partnership between CNM and ABQ Ride should be a no-brainer:
1. CNM is the largest secondary education institution in the state
2. CNM students, just like UNM students, have free access to transit. One reason the Rapid Ride has been so successful has been the fact that it serves UNM, a huge bank of citizens with free transit passes.
3. Community college attendees generally have average lower income than UNM attendees, making them perfect candidates for improved transit access.

The reasons behind the lack of a partnership between CNM and UNM are understandable. First, UNM has one major campus; CNM has many campuses scattered across the city.

Here is a map of the CNM campuses:

As you can see, there are many campuses with many locations. This is significant because many students take classes at multiple CNM locations. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on the three largest CNM campuses: Main, Montoya and Westside.

Connecting Montoya and Main: The Montoya campus is currently poorly served by bus service. Main is also lacking significant connections.

The current bus situation for Montoya: Two routes nearby (the #1 and the #5), but none that are even close to the front door of the campus.

The current bus situation for Main: Two bus routes-the 96 Zuni (which only runs on weekdays, stopping at a frequency of once per hour) and the 16/18 BUG (which has an extremely inefficient convoluted route). Solutions to improve the 16/18 are discussed here as well.

My solution: 1 new bus route and 1 enhanced bus route.

The enhanced bus route would follow the current route of the 96 Zuni route, but it would be enhanced by having a significant amount of distance added to it. The majority of this added distance would be the continuation of this route along Morris until it reaches the CNM Montoya Campus.

The route would look like this:

View 88 Morris/Zuni in a larger map

The two place marks on here are the two existing CNM campuses that this route would serve.

The benefits of this alignment are discussed in further detail in this previous post.

The other route I propose is a Rapid Ride route along Montgomery and University Blvd. The southern terminus would be the airport and the eastern terminus would alternate between CNM and the Montgomery/Tramway Park and Ride (on weekends, all the Rapid Ride trips would end at Montgomery/Tramway and on weekdays, the terminus would alternate between trips).

The route would look something like this:

View 725 Montgomery/University Rapid Ride in a larger map

Once again, the place marks designate CNM locations. This route also serves UNM and the UNM Hospital, which is growing very rapidly. This route would complement the current #5 route along Montgomery. This is similar to a route I proposed on this Duke City Fix post, which was then later discussed on this post.


Connecting the Westside campus to the ABQ Ride System: Currently, the Westside campus is served by zero bus routes. This is understandable, considering the sprawling nature of its location. However, it is relatively close to the Northwest Transit Center, making it a good candidate for the terminus of a regular weekday route with half hour frequency.

The route would follow this alignment:

View 101 McMahon/Ellison in a larger map

The marker on the left is the Westside CNM Campus, and the marker on the right is the Northwest Transit Center. This route would be guaranteed success, based on the theory of anchoring transit lines discussed in paragraph five of this post:

So transit planners are always looking to anchor their lines. Anchoring means designing a line so that it ends at a major destination, so that there will be lots of people on the vehicle all the way to the end of the line. A line with strong anchors at each end will have more uniform high ridership over the whole length of the line, and a much more efficient use of capacity overall.

Let's review:

Currently, all CNM students, and all UNM students, have free ABQ Ride bus passes.

CNM needs to have a closer relationship with ABQ Ride.

Three (3) new bus transit lines would vastly improve this connectivity.