Officials Must Put Best Foot Forward, Invest in Pedestrians
By Joanne McEntire
Albuquerque Alliance for Active Living
It's good for our health to walk and ride bikes. In an effort to get more Albuquerque residents doing this, a group of organizations got together a few years ago and developed a partnership to encourage active living.
That partnership, called the Albuquerque Alliance for Active Living, then asked an essential follow-up question: How can our communities pay for improvements that support pedestrian and bicycle activities?
We know that New Mexico's rate of pedestrian accidents is among the highest in the nation, yet the funds directed at pedestrian safety and comfort are minuscule.
Development in the Albuquerque region is, for the most part, based on the movement of cars, and the livability of our communities often suffers.
A trend toward overweight kids and obese adults, coupled with diabetes and heart disease, continues in New Mexico as in most other states. Whether they live in rural, suburban or urban places, people often don't walk frequently because it's not safe or there's no place to walk to.
Every level of government, from the federal level to the local community, provides funds for infrastructure and can help create walkable neighborhoods and safer streets. Right now, there is an opportunity for our elected officials to do this by developing a Walkable Neighborhoods Grant Program at the Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG).
This regional agency must update our Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) by 2006. The elected officials who serve on MRCOG's board, whether from Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance or Valencia counties or local towns and cities, should establish new policies specifically aimed at enhancing pedestrian travel.
But policies must be backed up with funding. MRCOG should devote at least 10 percent of the federal transportation dollars it receives to a new Walkable Neighborhoods Grant Program.
These funds would then be available to local governments for planning, construction or educational activities aimed at improving or promoting pedestrian travel. Right now, there is no separate program that targets pedestrian travel, yet regional transportation dollars amount to more than $130 million per year!
Individual road projects, such as widening Second Street between Montaño and Paseo del Norte, or sections of Paseo del Volcan to serve sprawling West Mesa development, can cost $50 million to $90 million over several years. But no funds whatsoever are identified in the last MTP specifically for pedestrian projects, and only an average of $378,000 per year is allocated to construct off-road trails used by bikes and some pedestrians.
A Walkable Neighborhoods Program would be separate from the construction of sidewalks with standard street projects. Many communities could use dollars to fix high-hazard intersections and roadways; improve routes that kids use to go to school; develop and implement Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Transition plans; and redesign arterial streets for pedestrian friendliness and safety.
The grants could be provided on a one-year to three-year basis and be included under a special Walkable Neighborhoods listing on the annual Transportation Improvement Plan.
MRCOG's management of its portion of the region's federal transportation dollars should support the most human mode of travel: walking. Local governments should also step up and designate funds for pedestrian projects, as well as state government. Wherever we live, we can probably agree that safe and attractive walking places for children and adults of all ages will be a healthy addition to our communities.
Also signing on to this commentary were Randolph "Dolph" Barnhouse, 1000 Friends of New Mexico; Dr. Lance Chilton; Ellen Gailey, city of Albuquerque Transit Advisory Board; Claude Morelli, Walk Albuquerque and North Valley Coalition; Richard Rivas, Vecinos del Bosque Neighborhood Association; and Stephen Wheeler of the Community and Regional Planning Program at the University of New Mexico.
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