The city of Albuquerque, N.M., has kicked off the third and final phase of community outreach for the ABQ RIDE Forward Plan to re-envision the city’s bus route network.
During the past two years, the city and Jarrett Walker + Associates, a consulting firm guiding the project, have collaborated with Bernalillo County, Rio Metro Regional Transit District, who both provide funding for some routes, as well as many other stakeholders and members of the public to analyze the current bus network, gather public input on route considerations and propose an updated network.
“ABQ RIDE is moving forward,” said City of Albuquerque Transit Director Leslie Keener. “Not only are we catching up to return to pre-pandemic service levels, we are evolving our route network to meet the needs of Albuquerque today.”
“Your voice is a key component to ensuring our city transit maintains the safest, most convenient rider experience possible,” said City of Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. “With microtransit options, zero fares and our successful bus stop safety operations, we continue stepping up so that our families who rely on the system are to be able to live their lives to the fullest.”
The Draft Recovery Network is now available for public feedback. The public can attend community meetings, pop up events at major transit locations and fill out a survey on the proposed network before Aug. 31.
“ABQ RIDE Forward has been fueled by community feedback every step of the way,” said City of Albuquerque Transit Principal Planner Andrew de Garmo. “Our team has worked hard to ensure the public’s voiced goals of high ridership and high coverage concepts are balanced in the proposed route network to present the best transit system we can with our current resources.”
The “Recovery Network” incorporates community feedback from Phase 1 and 2 of community outreach to provide more weekend and evening service, less peak-only commuter routes an extension of ART routes and more.
