Getting perspective in New Mexico
Every so often I leave town, and every time I do, one of the first things I notice is other places’ attitudes toward bicyclists.
Yesterday I was in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It’s a fairly sprawling place, but much smaller than Tucson. They have clearly made a few efforts to improve the lot of bicyclists, but whoa, I sure would not want to have to ride a bike there.
The separated bike path on University requires riders to dismount at every intersection! Imagine having to get off your bike and walk across every cross-street. I saw no one using this bike path, despite the fact it went right alongside campus.
There were a few other narrow striped bike-lanes, but of the few cyclists I saw, almost all of them were riding on the sidewalk.
I was in Albuquerque last year and noticed the same thing. I even rode my bike there, and found it to be fairly harrowing.
Tucson has a long way to go and there are many things we desperately need, like some fixes with the Fourth Avenue Underpass fiasco, but as bad as you might think it is in Tucson, we’ve got it better than most in the Southwest. Hopefully that trend will continue.
–Erik Ryberg
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:25 am
Wow! No love for Albuquerque! I was just there. I rode up and down Central from downtown to the university without a single hiccup. I was pleased to see that Lead and Coal had recently been converted from three-lane one way roads into two-lane one way roads with very generous bike lanes. I put on 35 miles one day riding from Nob Hill to Balloon Fiesta Park almost exclusively on bike paths.
What did I miss?
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:39 am
Sounds like I am the one who missed something. I recall a ride from downtown up toward the University that was absolutely terrifying. Either I took the wrong route or it was before the conversion you mention. Maybe both.
I have to confess my time in Albuquerque was very brief, and not well researched.
EBR
July 27th, 2010 at 11:39 am
It’s really a pity you didn’t access BikeABQ’s or the city’s websites which have links to the city’s bike map showing bike routes throughout the city. I don’t know what route you used that was harrowing–Lomas, maybe?-which isn’t a designated bike route and is high-speed (people here speed with impunity). I do believe the bike lanes on the one ways (Lead and Coal) existed last year, but there is also a way out of downtown on Martin Luther King Blvd, which has striped bike lanes for part and then a fairly low-traffic, wider street on another part. (Note: sadly, the city is currently in the process of screwing up the wider, low-traffic part by narrowing the road to “slow” traffic–but that only works if cops are out there ticketing.) I personally wouldn’t want to ride on Central, but plenty of people do and report happy trails like Ben above. Also…I can’t help but notice that Tucson is struggling with the Bike Boulevard concept. Did you know that Albq. has TWO Bike Boulevards?
Sure, Albq. needs some improvement–mainly in trying to change motorists’ attitudes, but I am sorry you picked a bad route and chose to judge Albq.’s bikeability from that one poor choice…
However I can agree that Las Cruces SUCKS when it comes to being bike-friendly. I surely wouldn’t want to ride down there…however I think they are trying. They have a fairly progressive mayor down there now and are taking baby steps in the right direction…
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Hey, I live in Columbia MO… I just thought I’d share our community’s view on bikers.
We have lots of tv and radio commercials promoting biking around our town… even a catchy jingle. But then the roads and the sidewalks totally suck for bikers. If I was on a bike I wouldn’t want to ride in most of the places around town. Which sucks.
In some of the newer areas of town they have started to add bike lanes… but this is an old town…. so lots of it is just terrible riding conditions for bikers.
August 14th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Albuquerque in general is very bike accessible, with the combination of bike paths all over town, and low-traffic bike route streets. I know because my husband and I lived there for over a year. We’ve ridden our tandem from the east side foothills, to North Valley and the Rio Grande river, to picturesque Old Town, and back on nice bike routes. And Albuquerque’s back country riding in the mountains east of town is without parallel. The 13-mile scenic road up to the Sandia Crest (almost 11,000 feet high) is a killer, gorgeous climb, with wide shoulders mostly and not much traffic. Well, I did have an elk run across the road behind me. But New Mexico in general apparently ranks very low on bike accessibility. Their DOT officials don’t think bikes belong on the road, and it shows. They have a “partial width paving” trick where they pave the road lanes and leave a thick asphalt lip in the middle of the shoulder (if one exists). The NM DOT will not respond to bike advocates who are trying to get the state to stop this type of paving, which wrecks bike access by making the shoulder unridable. It’s a shame because New Mexico is so scenic, and bike touring should be a form of tourism the state promotes. Maybe an early fall “Chilibrae” to rival Ohio’s ride. The “high road” to Taos from Espanola, through historic villages and beautiful forests, could be a wonderful bike touring route. But its narrowness and lack of shoulder is a bit scary.