City to install 'smart' bus stops in International District to discourage loitering, improve safety

As Route 66’s 100th anniversary approaches, the city said it’s revamping old infrastructure to prepare, improving safety and discouraging loitering along Central Avenue, which includes putting in new bus stops.

The city plans to install 14 “smart” bus stops along Central in the International District by year’s end.

Two stops have already been installed on Central around Louisiana and San Pablo. Next year, after construction in the International District is done, the city will replace the remaining shelters with 41 additional smart stops along West Central.

“The new design was chosen based on two criteria: to improve safety and cleanliness,” ABQ Ride spokesperson Madeline Skrak said. “They have better visibility and are easier to maintain. And riders can sit comfortably with shade during much of the day depending on sun patterns.”

The new stops are smaller and sleeker, with no side paneling and two seats. The old stops had three to four seats.

The smart stops have rooftop solar panels that are supposed to power lights, though multiple commuters said Wednesday that the lights at newly implemented stops near the International District Library haven’t been working.

Select stops will also include screens displaying arrival times, similar to those at the Albuquerque Rapid Transit bus stations, according to a city news release. The 14 new stops come with a $450,000 price tag.

Removing the old shelters and laying the foundation for the new ones will take up half that budget. The shelters themselves will cost $11,500 each.

Other elements, like the digital arrival sign will cost $11,000 each, while trash cans at each stop will come out to $2,200 each.

The funding for the 14 International District stops comes from city taxpayers, while the second phase of the project along West Central will be paid for with federal funds, Skrak said.

At least one academic and people living on the streets say that the new stops are an expensive attempt to decrease visible homelessness in public spaces without addressing the greater issue.

The city, however, said the change was necessary to replace aging shelters that “have been tampered with and dismantled over the years,” Skrak said.

Some business owners along Central said that the money could be better spent.

“They keep throwing money at this problem without addressing the root cause — which is the drugs,” said Melissa Spaeth, the co-owner of Southwestern Minerals on Central and Louisiana.

Spaeth’s business is opposite one of the old bus stops and an Albuquerque Rapid Transit terminal. One of the biggest safety concerns, she said, is drug use and pedestrian safety.

Putting up fencing so people had to use crosswalks would be a better use of money, said her husband and business partner Mike Spaeth.

Academics say the new design is less inclusive.

“Safety for some people often comes at the expense of other people,” said Renia Ehrenfeucht, a professor of community planning and associate dean for research at the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning.

Academics call infrastructure changes intended to discourage certain behaviors hostile design.

The seats, with no backing or arm rest, separated by a large pole, discourage people from staying in the seats long, Ehrenfeucht said. There are also fewer seats, giving people less places to rest. Most noticeably, she said, the seats are impossible to sleep on.

Other common examples of hostile architecture are skate stoppers, which are small metal wedges on concrete structures, or vertical dividers on benches that make sleeping uncomfortable or impossible. Those dividers are present on the old bus stops.

These intentional elements of design send the message that some people belong in public spaces and others don’t, Ehrenfeucht said.

“This is the wrong approach to make places not as usable as a way to grapple with this other really important situation in the city, which is that a lot of people can’t afford housing, and they’re living rough as a result of that,” Ehrenfeucht said.

For others, the prospect of newer, cleaner bus stops might make their commute more enjoyable.

At one of the original bus stops farther east on Central, John Hector waited in the shade with his hands gripping the handlebars of a gray bike. He commutes to a job on Kirtland Air Force Base each day, mainly by bike and catches a ride on the bus as little as he can.

“I don’t like riding the bus because of the people smoking blue and tweaking,” Hector said, referring to the street-term for fentanyl.

When shown a picture of the new stops, Hector said he would be supportive “if it helps with the homeless” — meaning not having them using the stops to sleep or congregate.

Back at the smart stop on Central and Louisiana, Ramona Chino, said she didn’t think the change was necessary. Chino rides the bus every day, she said, and prefers the old stops.

She stood close to the curb in a small island of shade to avoid sitting down on a bench that she said was too uncomfortably hot to sit on in a skirt.

“They made it like that so nobody can sleep,” She said, gesturing to the benches. “They were never comfortable, but it’s better than people being on the ground with the cockroaches.”

To Cherie Jackson, who’s been homeless on and off for the past 30 years, this is just the latest attempt to keep people like her out of sight. In her time on the streets, Jackson has traveled the country but always found her way back to this strip of Route 66.

Bus stops are one of the few spaces people living on the streets can reliably go to get out of the sun or rest their feet, Jackson said.

“They’re so quick to chase us off, a lot of people,” she said. “We have no other place to go.”