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From what I've heard when I've asked people involved, the plan is to move the Rapid Ride routes around. I'd imagine the most likely new Rapid Ride routes would mirror the current 4th Street routes, the 5 (Downtown/UNM/Carlisle/Montgomery) with a route on San Mateo. I'm sure any or all of these would get a Rapid Ride route before Unser would. I actually like the design of the stations! They remind me of miniature Denver International Airports But yes, a local line on Unser would be cool, and maybe a connection between CNM Westside and the Northwest Transit Centre.
Yeah, San Mateo is the most likely for RaRi service. I used to thinkthey would put one back when they started RaRi. A line on Unser could run at least from the Unser Transit Center (brt/66 connection) to the Walmart on Rio Bravo (route198 connection) give us folks on the west side some get-around. The 54 is not adequate!
Yeah, San Mateo is the most likely for RR service. A line on Unser could run at least from the Unser Transit Center (brt/66 connection) to the Walmart on Rio Bravo (route198 connection) give us folks on the west side some get-around. The 54 is not adequate!
I agree, the southwest part of the city is pretty well underserved! Even Coors in that area is a little inconvenient! Between Central and I-40 the 155 can come a bit infrequently. I had car-free friends in that area and they usually just walked to central to catch the Red Line, but crossing I-40 to the north was cumbersome and you can't quite do it easily on foot without using the ped crossings. The BRT will surely improve things for folks out that way, but i do hope that the local buses can feed into it well and serve neighbourhoods beyond the immediate area of the BRT.
Yeah, San Mateo is the most likely for RaRi service. I used to thinkthey would put one back when they started RaRi. A line on Unser could run at least from the Unser Transit Center (brt/66 connection) to the Walmart on Rio Bravo (route198 connection) give us folks on the west side some get-around. The 54 is not adequate!
It has been reported by a supervisor at the Yale Transit Facility that a San Mateo Rapid Ride (tentatively called the Orange Line) is already planned. I'm not sure if this will occur concurrently or separately with the start of Albuquerque Rapid Transit.
It has been reported by a supervisor at the Yale Transit Facility that a San Mateo Rapid Ride (tentatively called the Orange Line) is already planned. I'm not sure if this will occur concurrently or separately with the start of Albuquerque Rapid Transit.
I'd love a source, but I can't find anything googling. If this turns out to be true, I'll be very happy!! I've always wanted a Rapid Ride Route that also followed the current route of the 5 route. The 5 always seems well-used and is a great route. I hope this is all true. Along with the BRT, we'd have a very good transit system!
From what I've heard when I've asked people involved, the plan is to move the Rapid Ride routes around. I'd imagine the most likely new Rapid Ride routes would mirror the current 4th Street routes, the 5 (Downtown/UNM/Carlisle/Montgomery) with a route on San Mateo. I'm sure any or all of these would get a Rapid Ride route before Unser would. I actually like the design of the stations! They remind me of miniature Denver International Airports But yes, a local line on Unser would be cool, and maybe a connection between CNM Westside and the Northwest Transit Centre.
Yeah, the city has stated publicly that the Rapid Ride buses will shift off Central to other routes once ART is in place.
I find it curious how the renderings from the video don't show the gridlock of cars on Central that will be there in 2017 whether BRT goes in or not. Central is already chock-full of cars in the stretches that are going to lose one or two lanes. Unlike the rhetoric, those cars aren't going to disappear (or go elsewhere).
Also find it interesting that the businesses in the areas it's intended to serve don't want it either.
Albuquerque's got some mass transit shortcomings, but Central really isn't where they are most pronounced. It has a relative harmony of car friendliness, parking friendliness, and two kinds of buses providing quite regular service (it's definitely not paradise, but at 6 lanes wide including on-street parking, and being the absolute worst of a city this size, how much better could you expect?). I don't know anybody who would take buses on Central if they were faster who don't already take buses on Central. How many existing buses would Central travelers lose in order to get a BRT? Waiting 5 min for a 25 min ride vs. waiting 15 min for a 15 min ride (that happens to be 0.5 miles from your ideal stop) is a net loser on ridership.
People may work on Central but most people don't live on Central who work on Central; adding more "turn-the-corner" routes to bring people in from major N-S arterials (instead of relying on a transfer system for everyone) would do much more to improve ridership than dedicating two lanes to three-times-an-hour BRT.
When push comes to shove, I predict BRT will have to share with cars on the median lanes in the more congested areas, whether by cars occupying the lane illegally (city better make the fines pretty steep because I'd occupy the lane just on the principle of the thing otherwise), cars attempting to turn left, or by the outpouring of protests they'll get from the silent majority of motorists and retailers once they realize that Central is now 100% parking lot from Atrisco to San Mateo; of course, it'll be too late to get the money back by then. But hey, if you're in the business of doing studies and building transit systems, the customer is always right (even if the customer is out of touch with his constituents).
A close analogy to this ART is Phoenix METRO's light rail. Despite having far denser demographics (and wider streets) to support it, ridership is quite limp and waiting times are disproportionately high (12-20 minutes). It costs about $18 per ride, of which the average rider pays about $4 (rest paid by taxpayers). It doesn't save any time vs. a BRT that jumps onto freeways to bridge major population centers. As a motorist on Central (Phoenix) or Camelback, turning left across either street is an exercise in road rage. Those streets are still wider with the right-of-way than Central (Albuquerque) is without it. This (lose-lose boondoggles that can't be reversed) is one reason a lot of people think Phoenix sucks and Albuquerque doesn't.
As a bus rider, I'd feel ripped off by ART (now I have to wait longer and walk further). As a motorist, I'd really feel ripped off by ART (for every ART rider, we shove about 100 cars into adjoining lanes and back that line of cars that much further back).
ART (w/ dedicated lanes) will also have to stop, frequently, because of all the cars attempting to turn left across Central and unable to get across the ART-caused backups. That'd be a fun question to bring up at the next public meeting- have they done the math on how realistic their "rapid" times actually are by factoring in additional project-caused vehicle congestion?
Here's a BRT idea that would actually work: Rapid-ride sized bus from Uptown transit center to Downtown transit center, taking I-40/I-25 from Louisiana to Lead (in), and I-25/I-40 from Central to Louisiana (out). No other service. Add your favorite Coors stop(s). No dedicated lanes, just people moving.
Zoidberg, local line bus service is going to remain intact from what I understand. Furthermore, auto traffic will move onto Lead/Coal and Lomas. As for capacity, Lomas is currently underutilized, it can take the shift in automobiles from Central onto Lomas.
Businesses tend to benefit from BRT when properly implemented and Albuquerque actually seems to be doing this one right! Pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users tend to spend more in local businesses than auto drivers. As for car traffic at rush hour, even with BRT, assuming there isn't substantial mode shift, I doubt there will be much more waiting in traffic. Our streets already handle the cars very well it seems and the studies I believe take all of this into account.
The one thing I do agree with you is having more North/South routes in place. Guangzhou in China has a BRT system that has buses feed into it from other areas of the city, which is somewhat atypical of a BRT system, but it works great for their city and helps take a tremendous strain off streets. Something similar I've thought would work with the system they want to build here in Albuquerque. Perhaps the Blue Line could feed into the Central BRT, maybe additional routes on San Mateo, etc.. But we kind of have to have the first segment complete before we could consider that.
As for the cost of tickets on Phoenix's light rail system, it'd be interesting to see how much our roads/highways/freeways cost. How much of our auto traffic is subsidized by gasoline subsidies, road subsidies, etc? how much by the user? I'd imagine a lot of people would be on the buses if we had to pay the true value of gasoline and what not.
The one thing I do agree with you is having more North/South routes in place. Guangzhou in China has a BRT system that has buses feed into it from other areas of the city, which is somewhat atypical of a BRT system, but it works great for their city and helps take a tremendous strain off streets.
The city of Guangzhou in China has about 8,525,000 people versus 556,495 in Albuquerque. I have enjoyed public transportation in Asia and Europe in the 6+ years living overseas. There is no real comparison...
A close analogy to this ART is Phoenix METRO's light rail. Despite having far denser demographics (and wider streets) to support it, ridership is quite limp and waiting times are disproportionately high (12-20 minutes).
That is an urban myth, since ridership on Valley Metro Light Rail has actually exceeded expectations and continues to do so today.
I definitely think the Phoenix area can support additional light rail lines; in the Phoenix forum I created a thread with a dream system of light rail and streetcar lines, each with their own colors (Red, Blue, Green, Silver, Orange, Pink, Purple, Brown, and Gold). The existing route plus an extension further east to Superstition Springs Center in east Mesa would be known as the Red Line in my system.
The city of Guangzhou in China has about 8,525,000 people versus 556,495 in Albuquerque. I have enjoyed public transportation in Asia and Europe in the 6+ years living overseas. There is no real comparison...
No, there's not too much comparison, although I was just trying to make the point that BRT systems are flexible and we could have North/South lines that run as normal buses (or Rapid Ride) that then converged on the Central Avenue BRT system and then made use of those facilities, as the Guangzhou system does. It certainly would not be on the scale of their city's system, but the basic idea of having buses that spider out all over the city can feed travellers directly to the BRT system from their neighborhoods. It's not being considered for our BRT system as far as I know, but BRT is incredibly flexible and has brought great change to a lot of city's transit, at much less the cost of Light Rail and Metro systems.
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But yes, a local line on Unser would be cool, and maybe a connection between CNM Westside and the Northwest Transit Centre.
