Quote:
Originally Posted by Pink Jazz
While I no longer live in Albuquerque, I still tend to follow their transit system. Just as I have come up with light rail and streetcar line ideas for Phoenix, I have also come up with similar ideas for Albuquerque. Here is my list. Right now we have ART Red and Green, as well as Rapid Ride Blue, so I have added a few more lines - Orange, Brown, Pink, Purple, and Gold. - Orange - San Mateo - VA Hospital to Jefferson and Osuna.
- Brown - Coors/Montaño/Montgomery - Northwest Transit Center to Montgomery and Tramway Park and Ride.
- Pink - Lomas/Carlisle/Menaul - Downtown Albuquerque to Montgomery and Tramway Park and Ride.
- Purple - Lomas - Downtown Albuquerque to Tramway.
- Gold - Louisiana/Kirtland - Kirtland AFB to Montgomery.
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For me, I would add queue jumps for new Rapid Rides (and the current Blue Line) as well as new stations, similar to the curb stop stations for ART, to speed up onboarding.
Orange : San Mateo Corridor, VA Hospital to Balloon Fiesta Park/Office Area, Terminal at San Mateo and Balloon Fiesta Parkway
Blue Line : Potential expansion to CNM Westside Campus as new terminal while using the NW Transit Center as a stop. Queue jumps and better stations/pedestrian amenities would also help improve service on Coors.
Yellow Line : NW Transit Center to CNM South Campus via Journal Center, 4th Street and Downtown. Would link several areas reliant to bus to several main job centers, and three different transit centers (NW, Montano, ATC), would link NW to Journal Center, serve the 4th street corridors and South Valley which could use a better bus service. Bus would leave NW Transit Center via alameda, then turn south at Jefferson, then west at Osuna, then South on 4th. It would stop at Montano Transit Center, then south again to Downtown. At ATC, it would intersect ART, then proceed south through Barelas, cross Bridge Street, then follow Isleta to CNM South Side.
Pink Line: Same as yours, similar to the current local service 5 bus.
Turquoise line : Roughly the same as the current local service 157, NW to Kirtland
Purple Line : Sunport to Journal Center and perhaps Southern Blvd in Rio Rancho. A rapid ride replacement of what was supposed to be the next ART project. This could perhaps use central positioned stations to plan for future ART upgrade. Would run on Yale/University, then express service to Journal Center, then westward toward Rio Rancho.
Instead of Rapid Rides, I'd also add limited stop services on Lomas, Menaul, and the entire Montano/Montgomery corridor and the Coors corridor. Maybe branded as 11 Express and 8 Express. I think a Coors route similar would be beneficial, like a 155 Express line. For my transit-relying friends on the Westside, the gap between rapid rides Blue and Red was a frustration and the lack of frequency on the coors bus didn't help. I've heard this from other folks as well. Obviously these limited stop services could be easily upgraded to Rapid Rides if needed/desired.
I think my yellow line could also be split into two separate Rapid Rides that both end at the ATC, but in anycase, it would add good service to populated parts of the valley and connect to job centers.
I think all of these improved routes would also have some form of late-night service, at least until 1am or so, to help empower folks to broaden job searches. If you've ever lived near Central and had to take a restaurant job in the I-25 corridor that ends long after the 140 service does, or a retail job at Uptown where you get out at 11 and the red line is done for the day, it can be annoying at best and debilitating at worst. Increasing hours alone would increase the utility of the bus system for car-free folks massively and open up more shift work to many others.
I'd also think to adding circulators in certain areas, and increasing frequency of certain local routes (the Juan Tabo bus for example). A circulator may be a simple and cost effective way to link large parts of the west side to the main line local and express routes, for instance.
Much of these plans mimic the actual longterm plan, so they're not too head-in-the-clouds.
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