Car-centric traffic control devices rarely serve cyclists well. Depending on the intersection and scenario, the impact of these devices on cycling can range from being a nuisance to being a grave danger. Forcing cyclists to behave the same way drivers do at intersections increases cyclists’ exposure to being struck by drivers. More than 26 percent of cyclist fatalities in 2020 occurred at intersections according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).

Green lights often don’t give cyclists enough time to get up to speed and safely cross the intersection before they change. Induction loop detectors that trigger a green light when cars stop over them frequently fail to detect bicycles. We don’t demand that car drivers get out of their vehicles, walk to the corner, and push a beg button to get a green light. Why are cyclists expected to?

Bikes are small, agile, and do little damage in a crash. The primary victim is usually the cyclist themself. A bicycle perch offers cyclists unparalleled situational awareness, with virtually unlimited fields of view and hearing. Cyclists can easily make their intentions known to pedestrians, other cyclists and drivers. Bicycles are contextual; cyclists can adapt rapidly to most situations. Demanding that cyclists operate the same way cars do unnecessarily hinders them.

In 1982 the State of Idaho accommodated cyclists’ flexibility and vulnerability at intersections with a first of its kind law. Now commonly known as the Idaho Stop Law, it empowers cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red traffic lights as stop signs. The law does not allow cyclists to “blow through” (to use a phrase popular with the bikelash set) stop signs or red lights. It requires cyclists to approach the intersection cautiously, yield to other traffic that has the right of way, and proceed only when it is safe to do so. 

Idaho’s 1982 law produced an immediate safety benefit. Idaho saw a 14.5% reduction in cyclist injuries from traffic crashes over the next year. Other states have seen similar safety improvements as they implemented their own versions of the law. Delaware saw a 23% decrease in intersection traffic crashes involving cyclists in the 30 months after they introduced their law in 2017 vs. the 30 months before the law was introduced. At the very least, there is no evidence that Idaho Stop laws cause an increase in traffic collisions.

The Idaho Stop law enables cyclists to choose the safest time to cross intersections and to cross them quickly and with more visibility. Minimizing cyclists’ exposure and maximizing their visibility in intersections reduces their risk of being struck by drivers. For example, a cyclist forced to wait at a red light until the cars begin moving on green is at greater risk of right and left hook collisions. Allowing the cyclist to proceed through the red light (after first stopping to check for conflicting traffic) lets the cyclist clear the intersection before the cars begin moving. At four-way stop signs, confusion about who goes first between drivers and cyclists often leads to collisions. Codifying stop-as-yield will make these interactions more predictable by giving cyclists a specific rule for them to follow. And a stop as yield allows cyclists to get through intersections more quickly, so they’re at less risk from drivers who fail to look for traffic or stop completely. 

Idaho Stop produces safety benefits by influencing route choices and the decision to cycle in the first place. Having to make frequent stops on calmer roads may drive cyclists to use faster moving arterials with more risk and severity of collisions. Allowing smoother passage through stop sign intersections encourages cyclists to use calmer, safer roads. Decriminalizing logical cyclist choices encourages more people to cycle, enhancing safety through numbers. There are other long term health benefits, too. Cyclist exposure to carbon monoxide and other harmful car emissions will be reduced by shorter wait times at intersections. 

Idaho Stop laws encourage more people to cycle by making it more convenient. Frequent stops and waiting at intersections wastes time and energy. Pedaling back up to speed from a dead stop comprises a large fraction of a cyclist’s total energy expenditure. Total energy expenditure to accelerate from zero to 10 mph is reduced by 25% by stop-as-yield riding. Conserving momentum with a stop-as-yield law benefits users of both human-powered and electric bicycles. Whether the energy being conserved comes from muscles or a battery, stop-as-yield riding demands make cycling more efficient. 

The Idaho Stop law is fundamentally inclusive. Safer and more convenient cycling lowers the barriers to entry for new cyclists. Conserving momentum through intersections demands less physical fitness from riders. It also accommodates cheaper bikes, which tend to be heavier than expensive ones. Commuters without showers available at their workplace arrive less sweaty. 

It took other states a bit of time to follow Idaho’s lead, but the momentum is now building quickly. Delaware was the second state to implement a stop-as-yield law in 2017. Additional states have followed in rapid succession. Today, 11 states and the District of Columbia have enacted Idaho Stop laws. Today Idaho, Delaware, Arkansas, Oregon, Washington, Utah, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Minnesota and Alaska have enacted these laws. There are active campaigns to implement Idaho Stop legislation in at least 11 other states. It’s time for New Mexico to join them. 

Of course, the introduction of the Idaho Stop law raises predictable concerns or opposition wherever it has been proposed. Some opposition has even come from within the cycling community itself. Concerns about safety have been addressed earlier in this essay. The evidence points to tangible safety benefits, or at least no detriment to safety.

Another concern is a negative reaction from drivers that will lead to them bullying cyclists for following the Idaho Stop law. The problem with this argument is that drivers ALREADY bully cyclists for stop-as-yield (and a host of other normal, logical cyclist behaviors). An Idaho Stop law will legitimize this cyclist behavior. With time to adjust to the law and a good driver education campaign, legalizing the practice will prompt a shift in driver norms and ultimately reduce driver bullying of cyclists. 

One more note on driver bullying: The only thing that will make a driver more angry than a cyclist treating a stop sign as a yield is waiting behind a cyclist who follows the letter of the law with a complete stop at every intersection. The San Francisco cycling community demonstrated this with a 2015 protest of a police crackdown on cyclists. Every cyclist came to a complete stop at every stop sign. The resulting congestion and driver frustration was intense, and illustrates why drivers should be strong supporters of an Idaho Stop law, too. 

A final concern is that some cyclists just aren’t comfortable performing an Idaho Stop in some or all situations. That’s okay! The Idaho Stop law doesn’t make using it compulsory. It just empowers cyclists to choose how they want to proceed at intersections. Bicycles and cyclists are contextual. Cyclists should feel free to put a foot down at stop signs or wait for a green light if that’s what they feel safe doing in that situation. 

BikeABQ will advocate for an Idaho Stop law in the upcoming legislative session in 2025. Our campaign will include lining up a bi-partisan slate of sponsors and urging all legislators to support the bill. We will coordinate with other bike advocacy organizations across New Mexico to present a united front. It is critical that members of the cycling community urge their legislators to vote “yes” on the Idaho Stop. We want this law to be implemented statewide to avoid a confusing patchwork of local laws. We also want the bill to include provisions for a public education campaign for drivers and cyclists to ensure a smooth implementation. 

This will be a difficult campaign. Idaho Stop laws have generated vocal opposition when they have been proposed, and New Mexico will be no different. Arguments against the bill may come from drivers, law enforcement, some of the legislators we need to convince, and even from within the cycling community. We must persevere. The benefits of the Idaho Stop law for New Mexico are clear, and it’s time to fight for them. 

Why is this coming up now?

In 2023, New Mexico attempted to pass the PeopleForBikes model e-bike legislation, which puts the standard 3 classes of e-bikes used by some 40 other states into New Mexico law, separating the smaller, lighter vehicles people generally recognize as “e-bikes” from motorcycles, and generally granting them the same rights and privileges as standard bicycles. For those unfamiliar, the class system is as follows:

• Class 1: Motor operates only while pedaling and when traveling under 20 mph

• Class 2: Motor operates while pedaling or via a throttle, but only when traveling under 20 mph

• Class 3: Motor operates only while pedaling and when traveling under 28 mph, and bicycle must have a speedometer

E-bikes of all 3 classes are limited in motor power (maximum 750 watts) and must have functioning pedals.

Unfortunately, the New Mexico Senate made an amendment to the model legislation, with the following effect: whereas the model legislation allows Class 1 and 2 e-bikes to use paved multi-use trails and leaves the decision for Class 3 e-bikes up to local municipalities, the amendment instead allows only Class 1 e-bikes on paved trails, banning Class 2 and 3 from them unless otherwise decided by the local municipality. While the New Mexico House attempted to undo the amendment, there was simply not enough time in the 60 day session to complete the process, and so the flawed amendment made its way into law.

The primary issue right now is restoring access of Class 2 e-bikes to Albuquerque’s paved multi-use trails. There is simply no reason why Class 2 e-bikes should be treated any differently from Class 1, and the motor speed limitation on Class 1 and 2 e-bikes is sufficient to allow them to be ridden anywhere traditional bicycles are. Anyone who has ridden a Class 1 or 2 e-bike can tell a story of being passed by someone on a bicycle using only human power.

What does the proposed ordinance do?

Over the last year, the City of Albuquerque has been looking into how they want to allow Class 2 e-bikes on their paved trails, engaging the public (including BikeABQ!) at various points. Ultimately, they have decided on the following initial text, in ordinance O-24-14:

For all municipal bike trails:

• All vehicles (including standard bicycles) would be subject to a 20 mph speed limit

• This speed limit would exist in tandem with the current qualitative speed limit of “reasonable and prudent under the conditions”

• E-bikes of all 3 classes would be allowed

• “Powered micromobility vehicles” would also be allowed, aka vehicles satisfying all of the following:

• Electric-powered motor of at most 750 watts

• Top speed of at most 30 mph 

• Weighing less than some weight limit (currently under amendment)

For bike trails in Open Space lands or Regional Preserves (notably including the Bosque Trail and the Paseo de la Mesa)

• The Parks and Recreation department would decide on a case-by-case basis whether and which e-bikes and powered micromobility vehicles to allow

• We expect the Bosque Trail and Paseo de la Mesa would have similar rules to the municipal paths

What does this change?

In practice, this doesn’t change much. Burqueños currently ride Class 2 e-bikes on multi-use trails like the North Diversion Channel Trail, the Hahn Arroyo, and the Paseo de las Montañas, despite it technically being against the law. Similarly, a few people ride their bikes (both electric and non-electric) much too quickly around others on the multi-use trails, despite that violating the current “reasonable and prudent” speed limit on the trail. Just like the current prohibition on Class 2 e-bikes on trails is not enforced, we doubt that a numeric speed limit will be able to be truly enforced, and similarly doubt its effectiveness in curbing the behavior of current speeders.

Ultimately, the primary impact of this ordinance will be on e-bike retailers and on bicycle advocacy organizations, like BikeABQ. Currently, if you ask an e-bike retailer whether the Class 2 e-bike you’re looking to buy is allowed on the multi-use trails, the retailer has to say “no” (although many do not, this is currently a useful shibboleth for whether a retailer is being honest), and has to be careful how they advertise Class 2 e-bikes to make sure they aren’t implying they can be taken on trails. Similarly, when BikeABQ promoted cycling to Balloon Fiesta last year, for example, we had to be careful about not implying that all e-bikes could take the North Diversion Channel Trail to do so.

What does BikeABQ support?

The question of e-bikes on trails is fairly straightforward: class 2 e-bikes should absolutely be allowed on the paved multiuse trails. Class 3 e-bikes are a little different of a story, but ultimately a ban on class 3 e-bikes would be hard to enforce, and they are not particularly common e-bikes. It is likely simpler for everyone if no ban on class 3 e-bikes is enacted.

BikeABQ appreciates the goal of the ordinance; however we cannot support a blanket speed limit on all municipal multi-use paths. Speed limits on multi-use paths are not unheard of—Boulder has 15 mph speed limits on their multi-use paths, as does most of Europe—however in Albuquerque our multi-use paths are our only safe bicycle infrastructure. There are no significant stretches of protected or even separated bike lanes, nor of bicycle-only paths, so if someone’s desired biking speed is above 15 or even 20 mph—which can be done even by non-racers—they have to choose between biking along traffic or breaking the law, which is not a choice we can support forcing cyclists into. In these other cities, cyclists have a much broader variety of safe routes to choose from. We ultimately cannot support what would result in an effective ban on cycling safely above 20 mph across the entire city. The city is currently updating its bike plan, which will call for the creation of a network of protected and separated bike lanes. When that plan is seriously implemented, it may be valuable to revisit the question of speed limits on multiuse paths.

That certain trails suffer from conflicts between the various users is really a reflection of the success Albuquerque has had in developing those trails, and we have to give kudos to the city for creating trails with such popularity. These conflicts are ultimately infrastructure issues, caused by more people wanting to use the trails than the trails can support, and we would prefer to see the city address them as such by building more parallel safe cycling infrastructure and widening existing trails, rather than fiddling with the rules. It might be the case that certain regions of certain trails are currently problematic enough that specific attention is warranted on a timeframe that infrastructure changes are not feasible, we are not opposed to posting speed limits that apply to those areas only. We hope the city will use trail speed limits as a last resort, as infrequently as possible, and that they will endeavor to find solutions that will either allow them to lift the speed limit in the future or minimize their inconvenience.

Albuquerque’s multi-use paths serve a variety of purposes. Some of them, like the Bosque Trail and Tramway Sidepath, are popular pedestrian destinations where conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians are common. Others, however, like the University sidepath to Mesa del Sol or the Embudo Arroyo Trail along Indian School, are nearly exclusively used by cyclists. We do not view a blanket speed limit for all multi-use paths as appropriate, given their diverse characteristics. Moreover, needlessly inconveniencing cyclists on these trails will have the ultimate result of causing more of them to decide to drive to reach their destination, which makes Albuquerque less safe for everyone.

(Disclosure: BikeABQ’s Board President, Susan Gautsch, is the owner of an e-bike shop here in Albuquerque. She did not contribute to this blog and abstained from the board vote adopting the position outlined in this post)

Last year our governor proclaimed a public health emergency based on our state’s alarming rate of gun violence incidents, in numbers so high our state rose alarmingly close to the top of the worst for gunshot fatalities. Her effort to reduce these numbers was dramatically trimmed, but her proposal will be up for renewed scrutiny when our legislature convenes later this month. We’ll see what comes of it this year. It’s bound to be contentious.

Meanwhile, another form of everyday violence continues to rob us of safety and happiness, a mundane violence with many victims but no stand-out heroes, the violence on our roads. We live in a city laid out with roads designed to move people and products as efficiently as possible from one point to another. Being Westerners, we have long regarded speed and space as being our rights. We love our sprawling vistas, our sprawling ranches, our vast and sprawling city and we loved big, fast, polluting cars. Did we ever love our seemingly endless acreage of parking lots?

New Mexico has, from year to year, either the highest or the second highest pedestrian fatality rate. The paucity of data regarding crashes of motor vehicles with bicycles makes that rate unreliable, but if you ride a bicycle at all on Albuquerque’s streets you know how unsafe they feel! Despite the valiant efforts of governmental initiatives such as our city’s Vision Zero program, the count of victims keeps going up. 

A recent article by the Harvard Public Health provides an excellent overview of how and why traffic fatalities, including those from car-to-car crashes, keep rising across our country. It’s not the fault of e-vehicles or driverless cars, though they, too, show up in the sad statistics. It’s due to the fact that our roads are built for speed rather than safety while our vehicles keep growing larger and deadlier with every year’s models. The report is easy to read and full of facts; I encourage all of you to click on the embedded link, above. Its conclusion: “Traffic deaths are a public health crisis in the US.”

We actually know how to resolve this crisis. There is lots and lots of research on traffic policy and road design that can actually make a difference. A few of them came up for debate in last year’s legislative agenda, most of them tabled or left to expire. And, right now, there is actually federal money available to states like ours with outrageous traffic fatality rates! Will anyone bring these up in this year’s legislature? One state representative hopes to introduce a bill to outlaw necrophilia during the 30-day session. Is that really our priority??

Unlike the equally urgent efforts to legislate gun violence, one need not lose any precious Constitutional right if we choose to devote time, energy and resources to speeding up our work to make our streets safe for all to travel. We don’t have a right to kill, do we? Taking the City of Albuquerque’s Vision Zero statewide and fully funding it will make all of us safer, happier, and healthier. What brave and farseeing legislators will take on this public health challenge?

From our perspective, there are four city committees that are particularly important and relevant to the goals of BikeABQ: 

• Greater Albuquerque Active Transportation Committee (GAATC), which advises the city on matters relating to bicycling infrastructure and policies, as well as other forms of active transportation.

• Greater Albuquerque Recreational Trails Committee (GARTC), which advises several levels of government about the creation and upkeep of trails in the Albuquerque area (although lack of membership has limited its activity lately).

• Transit Advisory Board (TAB), which advises ABQRide, the city transit department, on issues relating to the structure and operation of the city transit system.

• Environmental Planning Commission (EPC), which plays a decision-making role in some zoning-related matters and acts as an advisory body to the City Council in more significant matters, such as updates to the City’s zoning code.

In all of these, committee members get to speak directly with city officials in their respective purview areas. These committees are often the first to hear of new initiatives or updates to existing ones; for example, TAB got to see analysis of the city’s ongoing ABQRideForward network redesign weeks before the document was published publicly, and GAATC has seen periodic status updates to the Alameda Drain Trail project. This provides a unique opportunity for committee members to mold these projects, asking about the presence or quality of bicycle infrastructure, crossings, and other aspects of concern.

Membership in any of these is fairly simple, although the EPC is slightly more complex due to its true decision-making ability. Each requires the ability to attend an online meeting once a month and some boards have geographic requirements—the details of which can be found on the committee’s respective website above. Furthermore, GAATC and GARTC require members to be residents of the greater Albuquerque area, TAB requires members to be residents of Albuquerque proper, and EPC requires members to be both a resident of Albuquerque and have professional experience in a field relevant to urban planning or civil engineering. 

The current vacancies for the committees are as follows:

• GAATC (3): one for a representative of individuals with a disability, one for a resident of NW Albuquerque, and one for a resident of SW Albuquerque.

• GARTC (8): one from either side of the Rio Grande and one representing each of the active elderly population, equestrians, off-road bicyclists, pedestrians and hikers, the physically challenged, and runners and joggers.

• TAB (6): no restrictions beyond needing to be a city resident.

• EPC (4): one each for a resident of council districts 1, 2, 4, and 7 (respectively mid-west side, downtown, north, and uptown; you can find which district you live in here)

If this sounds like something you could do, reach out to us! The BikeABQ board has substantial experience working with the city’s commissions and we would be happy to answer questions and help you prepare an application. These committees are only as good as their members, and so the more bicycle and related communities are represented, the better!

Certainly it’s easier to bring a bike on a train than on a car or plane (at least where Amtrak provides bicycle service), but that’s not all. It turns out that many of the reasons we care so much about making bicycling more accessible to all also apply to trains. Trains are cheaper and better for the environment than most other long-distance forms of transportation. They also support dense city development, which has co-benefits for bicyclists. Finally, trains get people out of cars, which themselves are the number one danger to bicyclists and pedestrians (and, frankly, other drivers). It’s worth noting also the subjective reason: trains are super comfortable, and the ability to chat, play games, or nap while traveling to other cities can’t be beat.

New Mexico currently has a fairly robust tradition of passenger rail, which shouldn’t be surprising given our capital city. Like most of the western U.S., most of our cities were built for rail, and our harsh arid climate has prevented them from sprawling endlessly away from their tracks. Today, New Mexicans make strong use of our rail infrastructure:

• Our Rail Runner has ridership comparable to rail systems in much more populous regions—more than San Jose’s Altamont Corridor and about as much as Austin’s Capital MetroRail

• Amtrak’s Southwest Chief travels through much of the northern part of the state on its journey between Los Angeles and Chicago.

  • The segment between Gallup and Albuquerque sees the most ridership of any internal segment on the Southwest Chief, is the 10th most used segment of all station pairs in the Amtrak system that only see long-distance service, and is the 5th most used segment in the Amtrak system involving a small community.

  • Philmont Ranch outside Raton is heavily accessed by Boy Scouts via Amtrak

With that out of the way, what could be coming to New Mexico?

Over the summer, the FRA released a Conceptual Enhanced Network, a list of potential segments that could be strung together to form new routes. It’s worth noting that these long distance routes legally have to be at least 750 miles long—if you’ve ever wondered why Amtrak doesn’t run trains between more cities, that rule is probably the reason why! However, long distance routes are a great way to provide service between many pairs of cities at once.

So, how can Albuquerque help fill out Amtrak’s long distance network?

The first long-distance route to consider is Phoenix-Flagstaff-Albuquerque (Belén)-Amarillo-Fort Worth, with possible extensions to Tucson or Houston.

This route would duplicate the Southwest Chief between Flagstaff and Trinidad, which deserves increased rail service:

• This segment contains several universities: NAU, UNM in both Albuquerque and Gallup, CNM, and the numerous universities in Amarillo and Fort Worth. University connections are important not just for students, but also for facilitating connections between industry and academia.

• Flagstaff currently has poor eastbound service from the Southwest Chief, with a departure at 4:20 or 5:20 in the morning (depending on daylight savings time). While the travel time between Albuquerque and Flagstaff is very competitive with driving, the poor schedule hinders its utility.

Connecting Phoenix to Flagstaff provides year-round benefits—enabling Phoenicians to escape the heat in the summer and providing an alternate transportation route in the winter—as well as enabling easier access to the Grand Canyon if a stop at Williams can be arranged. Upgrading the subsegment from Phoenix to Wickenburg to handle passenger service furthermore has the potential to facilitate a separate suburban rail transit system in Phoenix, which is severely lacking in efficient transportation options.

Continuing east, there is likely a significant amount of business travel between Amarillo and Albuquerque, due to the presence of large Department of Energy sites in the two cities (and additionally in Los Alamos). Furthermore, much of this travel is likely done by car due to the lack of direct flights, which gives Amtrak the potential for a strong competitive edge.

The connection between the Southwest Chief and the Sunset Limited on the west end and additional connection to the Texas Eagle and Heartland Flyer further enhances Amtrak’s existing network, providing additional options and greater access to the long distance network.

Unfortunately track geometry likely forces this route to go through Belen, rather than heading up to Albuquerque proper. Thankfully, the Rail Runner should be able to make the connection into the city as seamless as possible.

The second long-distance route is El Paso-Las Cruces-Albuquerque-Denver-Cheyenne, with a possible extension to Billings.

Connecting Albuquerque to Las Cruces via Socorro, and north through Las Vegas connects several major state universities: UNM, NMTech, NMSU, and NMHU being the most prominent, which (again) is important for student travel as well as university-industry partnerships in the state. Similarly to the situation in Phoenix, upgrading the Albuquerque - Las Cruces segment to support passenger services would likely result in Rail Runner expansion southward as well, potentially providing efficient and economical access to smaller communities like Hatch and attractions like Bosque del Apache.

This route also connects three of the four east-west long-distance Amtrak routes in the American West: the Sunset Limited in El Paso, the Southwest Chief in Albuquerque, and the California Zephyr in Denver.

Moreover, within New Mexico and Colorado this route would connect several of the states’ largest cities, including nearly all with a population greater than 100k. Train service along the Front Range of Colorado is already known to be valuable, so much so that Colorado is looking into building high-speed service in the region. Standard or higher speed trains provide valuable supplemental service to high speed facilities, as both services fill mutually beneficial niches.

Returning to an Albuquerque perspective, establishing these two routes by connecting them through Albuquerque connects five of the largest cities in the southwest and expands travel choices on the Southwest Chief section. In addition to these being large cities, they also have productive airports, which would improve the mobility options for those living in the smaller communities throughout the region. Finally, much of this region is subject to severe weather and wildfires which can provoke evacuations, close highways, and otherwise isolate communities. Albuquerque experienced such a misfortune this past winter, where winter weather closed I-40 East near Gallup, a jackknifed truck closed I-25 North, and Southwest Airlines—which comprises nearly half of all flights from ABQ—had canceled the large portion of its flights. Establishing rail service improves the resilience of these communities to such incidents.

If you want to see routes like these enacted, the Federal Railroad Administration is still taking public comment to guide their recommendations. Let them know what you want here: https://fralongdistancerailstudy.org/

Before I begin: The disclaimer above is for real. My comments do not pretend to represent the position of BikeABQ. They are mine. BikeABQ is allowing me to post them here in large part because they believe discussion is crucial if we are to find a sound way forward building a bicycle-happy city environment. Besides, BikeABQ is simply made of good people who love riding bikes.

by Susan Hering

E-bikes. They are on our streets, our multi-use pathways, our legislative agenda, and our minds. Every time I ride my old-fashioned, person-powered, ponderously pedaled two wheeler city bicycle, I am reminded that time does not stand still; science propels us into our future. The trick, and our constant, critical responsibility, is to ensure that the advances of science serve this precious planet to its betterment.

There are many questions about how we as bicyclists, concerned citizens, and New Mexicans are going to make room for e-bikes on our city streets. There are also questions about how they fit into a more rural or suburban place, but we’re talking about Albuquerque on this blog! That said, the first question I propose to bring up is posed by an example of a news story that broke across national media several weeks ago. Not exactly a headline grabbing story, but among those of us who care about traffic safety, a provocative and sad story about a young man, a boy really, who was killed while riding his e-bike on a road in Encinitas, California. Three days later, another boy in the same city was hit by a car while riding an e-bike. More happily, he survived. As the story of this tragedy was reported by the New York Times, without any substantiated proof that either bicyclist did anything wrong, it was strongly implied that these “collisions” make it clear that e-bikes require special regulation. (An aside here: Kudos to our Albuquerque Journal for calling a crash a “crash,” not an “accident” nor a “collision,” which both imply “Oops!” Words matter. Calling a fatal crash a “collision” is like calling Covid a “cold.” They’re both true, yet they belittle.)

The original reportage is linked, above. The following statement, from a sergeant in the sheriff’s office charged with these investigations, makes clear the prejudice against the bike rider. “The speed they (e-bikes) are going is too fast for sidewalks, but it’s too slow to be in traffic.” The e-bike the boy who was killed was riding had a maximum speed of 20mph. He was riding on a road with a speed limit of 55mph, a road on which he had a perfect right to ride. If his bike, even at its max speed, is too slow to be on that road, what would investigators conclude if a person-powered bicycle was hit by a car?! We are allowed on most city roads. If we have a right to be riding on our roads, don’t we have a right to be safe on our roads? As a BikeABQ post on social media put the matter, “An unbiased telling of the events would not pin the blame for teenage cyclists being hit by cars on the cyclists.” In Encinitas, a “state of emergency” was called to re-evaluate e-bike regulation. In California’s neighboring state and ostensible bicycling haven of Oregon, one needs to be 16 to ride an e-bike. As of this year, New Mexico too has an age restriction of 16, though it only applies to bicyclists on Class 3 e-bikes. More on the complexities of e-bike classes follows.

As active transportation advocates and vulnerable road users in a city built around the concept that getting places fast is more important than getting there safely, we are wrestling with several issues around the increased presence of e-bikes on our commuter and recreational routes. In the last, all-too-brief legislative session, our state representatives in the Roundhouse grappled with designing a class system to e-bikes in an effort to begin regulating their presence. At adjournment and as it stands at this writing, we have 3 classes. Class 1 and 2 e-bikes have a maximum speed of 20mph, with Class 2 bikes having a throttle. Class 3 bikes can go a little faster. All three classes are allowed on our city streets, whether the street has a bike lane or not, whether a bike lane is protected or not. (Oh. Wait. We don’t have many protected bike lanes. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?) At present, Class 1 e-bikes are allowed on all the great multi-use recreational pathways across our state, including those here in our city. It’s been left to local jurisdictions to permit Class 2 and 3. Our multi-use paths came under increasing use during our Covid changes, and so did e-bikes. Now, city leaders are mulling a proposal to impose flat out speed limits on those pathways. This may be a fine idea, but given that we haven’t yet managed to enforce speed limits on our roads, it makes me scratch my helmet to ponder who’s going to be the traffic cop on the Bosque trail! Frankly, I’d much rather our speed enforcement efforts focus more sharply on our deadly motor vehicle traffic, wouldn’t you?

We need to figure out how to add e-bikes harmoniously to our traffic streams. This isn’t going to be a cake walk, or should we say a cake ride, since we haven’t made a lot of progress adding any kind of bicycles to our traffic streams. The sad, sad case of the bicyclist killed by a hit and run driver a few weeks ago is just one case in point. A dedicated bicyclist, she didn’t even own a car and volunteered at our city’s Esperanza bike shop. Whomever killed her and whatever excuse they may offer eventually, they were not so impaired that they didn’t think clearly about their own defense; removing the cyclist’s body and bicycle from the scene as they did, returning her body to her home, shows they were cognizant. And removing the bicycle clearly prevents gathering evidence of driver culpability. You need the mangled bike to establish speed and direction of the crash.

Are e-bikes really the urgent problem on our roads? In a ranking of dangerous driving, a recent study by Consumer Affairs placed Albuquerque in the inglorious, scary position of third worst city in the US. I’d say, emphatically, the problem we have is not bikes, not even e-bikes. E-bikes are here to stay, and they should be. They allow more people to get places without a car. Getting places without a car is important even an e-car, in that it can eventually allow our wide roads to be narrowed, to gain tree-lined boulevard medians, to make frontage roads obsolete as traffic dwindles and slows. Yes. It’s all possible. Sure. Bicyclists on our multi-use pathways need to go slowly. This goes for those of us without battery power, too. If we want respect for our means of transportation or recreation, we need to show respect for those who are equally or more vulnerable. Or maybe, as our great multi-use paths become congested, as this Strong Towns article shows us can happen with the prettiest and best of urban intentions, just maybe we get back to making our roadways themselves into streets that are safe for all of us, streets with lowered vehicle speeds, protected bike lanes, and sidewalks that even a wheelchair user can safely use. We are not the problem. Our infrastructure is the concrete base of the problem. Our tendency to blame the victim for just being there on our roads and paths is a problem, too. The boy on his e-bike in California had a right to ride there. The woman killed here in Albuquerque recently had a right to be bicycling, whether or not it was night.

Let’s get this figured out. It doesn’t begin with e-bikes; it begins with slowing down cars and trucks and, until that’s accomplished, protecting those of us on two wheels, no matter how much our pedaling may sometimes need a little power boost. And in an article that just came out, our friends in the California Bike Coalition provide a nice overview of why we should all embrace, not protest, e-bikes on our roads and pathways.

(Disclosure: BikeABQ’s Board President, Susan Gautsch, is the owner of an e-bike shop here in Albuquerque. She did not contribute to this blog in conception or execution.)

I’ve had a young man staying with me recently, a college student from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, a pleasant and bike friendly little city on the mid-California coast. He’s here to complete a summer internship at Sandia Labs. As a devoted bicyclist and a part of his schools team of triathletes, he’s been trying to keep up his riding while here. Between our record-setting, blazing heat and the fact that he’s suddenly coping with altitude, I suppose it’s needless to say he’s been struggling!

He's also pointed out some challenges our city faces with regard to becoming a bike-friendly or at least bike-safe community, some missing and quite easily addressed amenities that we and our city reps/staff might consider. We know we need more shade on our streets, paths, and sidewalks. In a relatively small yet consequential manner, our city government has been working to ameliorate this with an important program of tree planting, done in conjunction with the not-for-profit group TreeNM. Having worked as a volunteer in this effort in order to bring more trees into my central city neighborhood, I can attest firsthand that it’s a really well-run and impactful program! However, as my guest pointed out after just his second ride (on a fixie, no less!) from my house near I40 to the Sandia outpost down on the Kirtland Air Force base, we offer very few places where a rider (or a walker or a wheelchair user or a scooter) can readily access either drinking water or a restroom. However carefully we use our great bike maps or Strava, if we’re doing more than a few miles, in this kind of urban heat environment, we may desperately need one or both.

Ironically, or as my more cosmically conscious friends might say “synchronously,” there was a piece on just this in this morning’s Streetsblog USA Round-Up, "Which Cities Have the Fewest Drinking Fountains -- and what it means for walking and biking" by Kea Wilson. To those of us who bicycle in the desert southwest, it’s already painfully obvious. The usual good guys came in near the top of the list, the known bike-friendly or at least bike-conscious states of WA, CA, OR and MN. The cities that topped the list had some surprises, although unfortunately Albuquerque being among them was not that surprise. Washington DC topped the list, with its 24.83 water fountains/100K people pushing it nearly into the best cities of the world, with European cities dominating that realm. St. Louis and Austin also posted some respectable numbers at the top of the American list. Zurich holds the water trident/scepter, with nearly 222 water fountains per 100K!

From those three cities, among which only one faces something similar to our own climatic extremes, the numbers of water fountains per 100K population falls off pretty dramatically, one is tempted to say in much the same way an exhausted and dehydrated rider or pedestrian might tumble ignominiously and dangerously to the hot pavement without water. At the very bottom is Memphis, providing its citizens with only .09 (!!!!) water fountains per 100K persons. Yikes! Do NOT move to Memphis!

Where are we? As a state, we came in rather middling among the 50, with 5.11/100K. In view of the inequities we see so consistently between our more affluent places like Santa Fe and Los Alamos and our more isolated pueblos and old agricultural towns, I’m guessing those same inequities might be present here, especially given persistent problems of water quality in some of those towns. And our hot and sprawling city of Albuquerque? Let’s give our great city parks some clicks for installing more in the last decade, boosting the availability of drinking water in our parks up to #23 in a national ranking as of this May. Yay! Most of us who are riding any distance aren’t pedaling through our city parks, though. I haven’t yet found data on our city itself. I can guess, given how our urban population dominates and skews our statewide data, that our city is pretty close to the state’s ratio of 5.11. I have an inquiry out to find more specific data, with the group WeTap, whose mission is to research and increase the availability of clean drinking water in the US, along with reducing our reliance on plastic bottled water/waste. They’d be happy to have help charting and identifying public water fountains in New Mexico: Check them out if you’d like to help! There’s also an app you may want to download that can help you find the nearest drinking water: Cool, and cooling! (Caveat: I haven’t used it yet, so can’t vouch for what it knows about Albuquerque.)

One other thing, the almost unmentionable and saved for last thing: Public restrooms. In our national obsession with evicting and controlling how and where unhoused persons camp, we have closed a lot of restrooms. We have lost many in our parks, sometimes replacing them with portable stalls, sometimes not bothering. Private businesses, too, have imposed limitations on who may use their facilities, making it difficult or even humiliating to ask to use a bathroom in a store, restaurant, or gas station. If you are an athlete whose rides or runs takes you more than a few miles, you know that this is a real concern, often an urgent need. I have no data yet. I’ll work on that.

Meanwhile, while we’re all watching with fascination and hope the development of our city’s Railway Corridor, let’s hope when we soon get to ride it that we find water fountains and clean restrooms well dispersed along its length.

Bicycle parking at airports gets a surprising amount of skepticism. People generally understand the utility of having secure bicycle parking available in general, and particularly at public transit locations, but when it comes to airports the benefits are apparently less obvious. This likely comes down to a common thought trap when it comes to bicycles and bicycle infrastructure: the idea that if something is not viable in 100% of all circumstances then it should be avoided. As a bicycle advocacy organization, we see this all the time: "why should we make it easier to bike if you can't use a bike to haul 500 pounds of bricks halfway across the state?"

Indeed, the most common objection to having secure bicycle parking at airports is that people can't take their luggage on a bicycle. I suppose it's worth mentioning that people can absolutely transport luggage with a bicycle; in a similar vein, here's a shot of me taking a tower organizer and some other supplies home with my bicycle.

But besides that the objection is wrong, it's also irrelevant. The popularity of Spirit and Frontier airlines shows that many people travel with just a carryon. Business travel is another important case, as business travelers often don’t need much more than a laptop and a couple days of clothes. Between downtown, the University of New Mexico and CNM, and Sandia National Laboratories, among others, there are numerous businesses within only a few miles of the Sunport that not only have business travel needs but also have employees that prefer to bike to work.

Of course, this also misses another major point: airports are major employers. Between the internal shops, airline employees, and TSA and FAA personnel, airports employ thousands of people. Even a modest airport like our Sunport boasts employing over 3,000 people, many of whom would benefit from the ability to securely store their bicycle after commuting.

It's worth taking a sidebar here to describe what these bicycle lockers would likely look like. Like most places in the US, Albuquerque is fairly lacking in secure bicycle storage; however we do have some. At nearly every Rail Runner station you can find a collection of large beige boxes—these are actually bicycle lockers! Each box is divided diagonally into two lockers, and are assigned to people for periods of six months with a rental cost of $25.

While not being on-demand like bike racks, this method of service has its own perks. On the user's side, the most notable is that you know you will be able to store your bicycle securely, since you are the only one with the key to your locker. On the administrative side, Rio Metro, which runs the Rail Runner's bicycle lockers, only has to process the ownership of each locker at most twice a year, minimizing the operating and infrastructure cost of installing such a system. Of course, businesses that frequently use the airport could rent lockers for their employees to use and implement a smaller-scale locker-sharing program within their own organizations, marking a middle ground between on-demand and reserved bicycle parking.

Biking to the airport has many of the same benefits as biking in general. Our Sunport has surprisingly decent bicycle access between the multi-use trail on Gibson and the sidepath on Girard, plus it abuts the most bikeable neighborhoods in the city. That infrastructure allows cyclists to avoid the traffic that commonly plagues airports, especially on arrivals, and gives an alternative to taking a rideshare service, which can involve rather long waits in Albuquerque, especially for early morning or late night flights.

It's rather heartening that the city is looking into adding bicycle lockers to the Sunport, as this is a fairly simple infrastructure improvement with substantial benefits. If you agree, I encourage you to call your councilor and express that sentiment, and even better talk to your employer and ask them to support this option.

BikeABQ invites and reviews guest bloggers' posts that contribute to collegial discussion about safe, sustainable and affordable biking – be it for recreation and/or transportation. However, BikeABQ does not verify nor endorse this or any guest blogger posts. Rather, we welcome a wide range of perspectives that foster friendly and fruitful dialog toward our shared mission of Safe Streets + Community Events + Smart Mobility!

In 2016, a university student in Chicago named Christina Whitehouse was nearly run over by a truck. The truck driver shrugged off her justifiable anger and fear. Chicago, at that time, was hailed as the Best Bicycling City in the nation. Two weeks later Whitehouse heard of a bicyclist killed in similar circumstances, and the next fall a bicyclist was killed near her college campus. When she graduated, she built an app she named Bike Lane Uprising (BLU). Chicago media discovered it. Today, over 56,000 bike lane obstructions have been recorded across the US, along with a wealth of data about bicycling conditions and indifferent drivers.

Check it out. Download the app (free, although BLU welcomes and needs donations); see what kind of data BLU is making available to bicyclists and policy makers/planners/police. It’s mapped, it can be broken down by outcome (was there a crash involving the obstruction?), time, type of obstruction, and place. It’s being used by cities from California to Louisiana and all along the eastern seaboard. of offending vehicles with or without license plates visible can be used to identify and ticket repeat offenders. (Spoiler: There are LOTS of repeat offenders!)

What’s deemed a “bike lane obstruction?” Basically, it’s anything that’s NOT a bicycle with a rider. Garbage and garbage trucks, broken glass and snapped tree branches, “portable” storage units, and junk no one bothered to put in a storage unit. Even organic intrusions like this photo shows invade and diminish our space on the roads.

But mostly it’s motor vehicles, with, as you may guess, a decided emphasis on trucks. Service trucks, delivery trucks, and lots and lots of passenger trucks trying hard to look like army tanks.

In Chicago, the plethora of reported pictures and the accompanying data have resulted in increased ticketing and new investigations of crashes involving motor vehicles and bicycles. The Inspector General's office there is now taking bicycle crashes under its jurisdiction. Crashes are predictable when bicyclists are suddenly forced to swerve into lanes of fast moving vehicles. Crash outcomes are even more predictable: Bicyclists lose. Sometimes they lose their lives.

Think about it. What would the public response be like if an Amazon delivery truck or an electrician’s big work truck parked in the middle of a car lane for the day? Picture a two-way, two lane street – we do have a few of these in Albuquerque – and this vehicle completely blocking the lane YOU want to travel. No one’s in the truck. Honking your horn does nothing. Cursing does even less. You’ve got places to go. Cars are stacking up behind you. You are so close to the parked truck you can’t see if traffic is oncoming from the opposite direction. You take a deep breath and give your car an extra shot of power and, well, I’d be praying. You take a chance.

A bicyclist’s chances are always weighted, mostly because our mode of transportation does not have much weight. In an “encounter” with a motor vehicle, even a smaller one, we lose. We have to claim the little bit of safer space we are afforded with a bike lane. We need to report the bike lane obstructions we see every single time we ride and then press the City to follow-up. We are making some progress with ticketing speeders now that we have grown our traffic enforcement camera installations. Let's do the same with those who force us out of our designated lanes into car traffic.

We don’t have many decently protected bike lanes in ABQ. Paint is not protection. Paint does not deter drivers from entering our little lanes. What little rainfall we get comes fast and moves rapidly down our vast cement corridors, leaving lots and lots of water-born litter, plastic bags and bottles, old cardboard signs left behind by our panhandlers, branches, leaves, and the ubiquitous single sneaker of course. This debris is also deadly for our skinnier, more sensitive tires. Again, we cast a nervous glance over our left shoulder and slip into the car lane.

The BLU app is simple and thorough. It does most of the work of reporting for you. If you’re taking a photo of the offense, you may have to stop to safely pull out your phone and click it, but photos are not mandatory. Do we need it here in ABQ? If you ride on our roadways, you know. I asked Whitehouse if BLU was getting many reports from our riders. She brought up a map from the app. There were 3 dots where we live. Three. We can’t identify the root causes of bike crashes if we don’t report our conditions. When we identify “hot spots” of obstructions and repeat offenders, we take an important step toward establishing safer riding.

Download it. Try it out. Leave a comment here with your thoughts about bike obstructions in Albuquerque. And let your city councilor and maybe even the mayor’s office know what you’re seeing out there. Numbers can make a difference. The focus of this app on a single urban problem and the resultant ability for the public to readily access and use the aggregated data gives it an immediacy and persuasive power 311 does not have. It's true in more than one way for those of us who bike on Albuquerque's roadways: There is safety in numbers. Let's generate some numbers!

Ride safely.

We probably all know someone who doesn’t like coconut and maybe pretends they’re allergic to it. And who doesn’t know someone who doesn’t really like cats? Or even fireworks? But is there anyone who doesn’t like murals?

There’s a new mural in town, the so-called Vision Zero mural on the eastern wall of Expo NM just north of Central near the Casino entrance facing Louisiana. It was designed and painted by a group of talented students paired with the local group, Artful Life under the guidance of Andrew and Kathryn Fearnside.  Here’s a (partial) picture of it.

It’s bright, bold, and beautiful, just like the painters, all of whom live in the district, a district that practically cries out for bold moves to bring brightness and beauty into its boundaries. This is the northwestern edge of the International District, as we are now supposed to call it instead of its more telling former name, the Combat Zone.

Combat Zone? This is a notably low income part of Albuquerque, and like the poor parts of cities all across the US, the part of town where violence comes in many forms besides the everyday violence of economic inequities. One form this violence assumes is that of traffic. This is the part of town where cars kill nearly as often as guns, in large part due to the indifference with which fast, wide roads were paved through its heart. In the gentrified language of transportation planners and policy makers, this particular stretch of the Louisiana arterial optimistically labelled “Boulevard” is, as a city funded study is reliably one of our city’s constant entries as a “High Fatal and Injury Network” district. That’s the polite name for a place pedestrians are at especially high risk of being hit by cars. In a city that has been in either the top or the second spot in national rankings of pedestrian fatalities for years now, including the most recent rankings, to be in a HFIN is, well, shall continue speaking euphemistically and just say to be at the top of these lists is not anything to boast?

In 2020, less than a year after Mayor Keller announced that our town was committing to be part of the worldwide movement to end traffic fatalities known as Vision Zero, a well-qualified assemblage of CABQ planners, DOT planners, police, and community reps put together a gripping study of pedestrian safety on, you guessed it, Louisiana Boulevard. It’s linked below, and it’s full of interesting findings and ideas. Our city’s Vision Zero plan proposes work that purports to not only extricate us from the top of the heap of pedestrian fatalities but to end traffic fatalities within our city limits. Obviously, this is an enormous challenge, many will say impossible, but hey: Even if the city’s VZ Plan takes us only partway there, even if we only succeed in putting up more traffic cameras, building moreroundabouts, painting and signalizing pedestrian and bicycle crossings, and (my personal quest) protecting a few of our street’s bike lanes with MORE than paint, well, that’s something. Something that matters. Traffic has actually decreased on this stretch of Louisiana since other routes absorbed traffic to the Air Force base, now lingering nicely below the daily traffic totals the federal highway administration sets as being fit to reduce the number of traffic lanes! (That’s in the City’s fascinating study, too.)

But we were speaking of paint: Back to the Vision Zero mural!It’s striking. It’s beautiful. It speaks of the lives of those who live in the District and even, if subtly, to the fact that many who live in this part of town number heavily among our city’s most vulnerable road users. There are ghosts floating through the mural, seemingly the ghosts of those who have found out the hard way what traffic violence is. Painting and designing this artwork provided good, creative work and a sense of community that’s so important, especially for our younger citizens. Still, one can’t help but wonder how this mural is going to do anything to end the carnage on our city streets. Distractions for drivers are abundant. When vehicles are speeding or when they’re large, heavy SUVs or trucks, both common here, a momentarily distracted driver easily turns into a deadly driver.

We can hope none of the drivers on Louisiana are checking out the stunning new mural when they should be watching for all the varied forms of traffic on this roadway. But do walk by it sometime, maybe on your way to take in the fireworks soon or a visit to Talin Market? Don’t bike: there’s not even a painted bike lane on this arterial where, as the city’s study affirms, drivers are known to go 10-15 miles above the 35 mph speed limit.

Oh. And btw. A boulevard is really not what we have on Louisiana, where, as the city’s study points out, most of the street entirely lacks raised (safe) pedestrian islands/refugesbetween the north and southbound lanes. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials“Boulevards separate very large streets into parallel urban realms, buffering the commercial or residential street edge from the high speed throughway by means of multi-way operations and frontage roads.” And they are generally associated with having lots of nice shade trees. Please note the shadow of a tree on the Vision Zero photo. Trees have to be alive to cast shade.

https://issuu.com/nmblackleadership/docs/ide_volume2_issue_5/s/24254053

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/91fbdd4a02744b68b9eb4374290f72e0

https://www.cabq.gov/artsculture/news/city-dedicates-201cvision-zero201d-mural-at-expo-new-mexico

In Philadelphia earlier this month a major overpass on heavily trafficked I95, which carries about 160,000 vehicles a day, collapsed without warning. City officials, local and national media, and even Transportation Secretary Buttegieg all predicted a traffic calamity so long lasting and dramatic that the resultant supply chain disruptions would compound national inflation. What happened? Well, it’s true. The next day, traffic was a hot mess. By the end of the week, though, traffic times for commuters and truckers was pretty much back to normal. Coincidentally, use of the regional transit system went up 14 percent on the lines serving that corridor.

This is what is called “induced demand.” It’s a well-documented phenomenon which works in two directions. When we add an additional lane to a road in order to move more vehicles more efficiently, the  efficiency is short lived. As soon as drivers are used to the new lane, its addition provides no significant time or safety advantage to drivers. Why? When driving appears to become more efficient, more people hit the roads, sometimes literally. Conversely, when we remove a lane, whether to expand a hospital or to reconstruct a bridge or maybe even to create a protected bike lane (!), fewer people drive and traffic efficiencies/drive times stay pretty much true to their former measures. The biggest study of lane reduction impacts on driver behavior examined 70 cases and found that traffic on roads that lost a lane experienced an average reduction in traffic of 41 percent.

What do you say we work to reduce a few lanes on some of our fast and dangerous arterials here in Albuquerque? Maybe we could start on Lomas when the hospital construction is done.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bb99/i-95-philadelphia-carmageddon-never-happened-data-shows

https://t4america.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Congestion-Report-2020-FINAL.pdf

https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/disappearing_traffic_cairns.pdf

Your membership contributions, donations (personal and business), event volunteer hours and advocacy efforts are making Albuquerque and greater NM safer for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists – and way funner for us all!

I’m proud to announce that BikeABQ not only has a new bold website, we also have a new bold vision!

PROPOSING BETTER POLICY:

BikeABQ advocates for enhanced infrastructure for bike safety such as: roadway & bike lane designs, new and improved bike trails, laws & enforcement mechanisms to keep dangerous road users in check and active transportation projects for more sustainable, affordable, equitable, accessible, healthy, modernized and fun mobility.

EVENTS AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:

BikeABQ hosts and supports multiple events that bring people and communities together for information-sharing, mutual support, informed decision-making and stronger relationships among cyclists and other bike enthusiasts, other organizations, government officials, researchers, local communities and businesses.

PURPOSE-DRIVEN PARTNERSHIPS:

BikeABQ is growing our partnerships with local event hosts & sponsors, bike-friendly businesses & business alliances, national foundations & lobbying organizations for mutually beneficial experiences and strength in numbers.

We also have several new talented, energized and well-connected board members, many new bike advocates, collaborators & event volunteers!

In the last year, we have brought on several new highly-engaged board members and enlisted many other community advocates who’ve been collaborating with us in many of our efforts – and we with theirs. Strength in numbers matters! Organizationally, we’ve formed a set of action-driven committees/working groups for members and non-members alike to participate as it relates to advocacy, events, membership, communications and our organizational finances. We’d love to work with you too!

We not only rebuilt our website, we also rebuilt our entire technology platform!

Our new integrated platform now enables better internal and external communications and collaboration as well as our membership management, point-of-sale and financial and transactions management. It’s the bomb!

We’re advocating locally, regionally and for all of New Mexico!

We have advocated at the local and state-level for dozens of bike, traffic safety, infrastructure development plans, trail maintenance and improvement projects, new legislative bills, speed enforcement programs, surveys and impact studies and more.

We’re supporting our bike community and events!

We have also provided support, promotion, bike valet, tax exempt status and liability insurance for another few dozen events including Balloon Fiesta, Day of the Tread, Bike-to-Wherever & BikeThruBurque weeks, Kidical Mass, CiQlovia, NM State Fair and much more. We also distributed thousands of 2022 Bike Maps to local businesses and organizations to share with their customers and constituents.

I’m thrilled to be back in SmallBuquerque, but my personal goal is to help make this town even better!

I’m so thrilled with what BikeABQ has accomplished this past year and I’m tremendously optimistic for the year to come thanks to all the wonderful people who have joined us in these efforts! I returned to Albuquerque during the pandemic after a 25yr academic career mostly in LA. Not long ago, it was true that “no one walks in LA” but through the 2010’s, that all changed! People walk, ride, scoot and roll thanks to the ongoing advocacy work of a few focused bike organizations and coalitions. Green bike lanes all over the place. Increasingly there’s barriers now for better protection from motorists. Active transportation is working!

This is Doable! … But we need your help.

But we really, really need your help! Whether it’s writing letters to our government officials, attending advisory meetings, showing up to share your stories and concerns, attending or volunteering at any of our or our partner’s events (they’re fun!) We need your help! You’ll note we also restructured and increased our membership plans. It was clear that BikeABQ and all these efforts listed above would not be sustainable with our decades-long $10/yr membership plans. Like most nonprofit organizations working on your behalf, we do need your help! So please, seriously consider what you can reasonably afford when you renew your membership. And even if you cannot afford any of the monthly payment plans, there’s still a one-time low and flat membership fee that aligns with our previous plans. We still need you in whatever capacity you can muster.