ABQ Ride policy on Bikes Makes No Sense, by Annette Chartier

Photo by Busboy.

The following article appeared in the second issue of a new Albuquerque newspaper, ABQ Free Press. The paper does have a website, but none of its articles are posted there -- and may never be if I correctly understand the gist of its motto, “The future of print is print.”

This article is about ABQ RIDE and bicycles. I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing and posting it here.


ABQ Ride policy on Bikes Makes No Sense

by Annette Chartier


So you want to do a bike/bus combo to get to work? Good luck.

ABQ Ride has a bike/bus policy that makes it impossible to know whether you’ll get to work on time in the morning or home again at night.

Every day, cyclists pressure bus drivers to make split-second decisions as to whether or not to allow bikes onboard if the bike rack on the front of the bus is full. Drivers know that if they make the wrong choice and someone gets hurt, the buck stops with them.

So, most drivers simply say no, leaving the bike commuters waiting for the next bus, or the one after that, or the one after that.

Although there is a city policy on bikes and buses, an ABQ Free Press Inquiry found enough contradictions to undermine any rational claim that Albuquerque is, or is becoming, a multimodal city.

Let’s start with policy.

“Right now, the policy is that if the bicycle rack is full and if the wheelchair area is unoccupied, then the bicyclist will be allowed to bring the bicycle on the bus and stand with the bicycle in the wheelchair area,” said Bruce Rizzieri, head of ABQ Ride. The ABQ Ride website has said pretty much the same thing for years.

But that’s not the reality.

“In this city, it’s just easier to stay on your bike and keep pedaling than it is to wait for a bus and hope that you’ll be able to get your bike on that bus,” said Jennifer Buntz, president of the Duke City Wheelmen, a bicyclist advocacy group. Her sentiment was echoed by bicyclists at bus stops and in bike shops.

We found the same thing firsthand.

Over seven days of riding the bus with and without a bike, we questioned 17 drivers on six routes about the bike policy. We didn’t identify ourselves as journalists; we simply asked drivers questions, such as, “What’s the policy on bikes and buses?” and “Can I bring a bike onboard if the rack is full?” Most of the drivers we talked to said: No bikes inside.

“This route is too busy to let bikes on,” a driver on the No. 66 bus at San Mateo told us. “Even if the bus is empty at this stop, it may fill up at the next. I won’t allow bikes on some other [of his assigned] routes, either.” Another No. 66 driver said her supervisors forbid bikes onboard.

Still another No. 66 driver apparently sets his own policy. “I never let bikes on my bus, if the bus is empty or full,” he said. “No bikes.”

The farther you get from Central, the better your chances. A driver on the No. 11 Lomas bus said, “If the bus is relatively empty, then I will let you on the bus, but you have to go in through the back door.”

On a rush-hour No. 140 bus at Jefferson and Osuna, a driver said, “Most of us out here will allow bikes on the bus because it’s not very crowded out here -- but in the back of the bus only.”

On the No. 157 Montaño/Uptown/Kirtland route, however, a driver told us one Saturday afternoon, no bikes inside, period. “Even if it’s this empty?” “Yes,” she said.

On the bus were five people: the driver, us (two people on bicycles) and two friends who had boarded at the same stop with us but had left their bikes at home, knowing they’d be denied boarding because of lack of rack space. Many buses have only three bike racks. On this day, one of them would have been denied boarding.

Phillip Torres, a transit safety officer, said the policy is written the way it is “so there is a loophole” to allow a driver to deny boarding to a bicyclist to prevent an injury to other passengers. Liability should come first, he said, because a driver will have to defend or explain his or her decision.

Another transit safety officer, Elizabeth Maestas, wants to see the policy rewritten. “It would help the complications we have with passengers,” she said. “Then we’d have an administration that’s going to back us with the decisions we make.”

Torres said a manager has told drivers to allow bikes only in the back of the bus, which conflicts with the bike policy but apparently is being followed by drivers off Central, even though it violates a broader policy to keep the aisle clear in the back of the bus.

ABQ Free Press asked ABQ Ride spokesman Rick de Reyes about safety. He said he was unaware of injuries or lawsuits stemming from a driver’s decision to allow a bicycle on a bus.

When we asked a media relations manager in the mayor’s office for comment from Mayor Richard J. Berry on the state of the city’s bike/bus policy, we were referred to Rizzieri, with whom we had previously spoken.

Rizzieri said the current policy, adopted in 2006 during former Mayor Martin Chavez’s last term, was written before demand for bikes on buses increased. After we revealed our findings, he said ABQ Ride is looking at possible revisions to the policy and a move toward a Bus Rapid Transit system using roomier buses with more space inside for bikes. During the reporting of this article, ABQ Ride unveiled its proposal for a BRT system.

Sign of a Deeper Disconnect?

Bob Tilly, a City of Albuquerque Transit Advisory Board member, thinks there’re more than just a bus/bike policy disconnect at work in Albuquerque.

“I think it’s a perception disconnect,” he said. “In America, we like one answer. We drive our cars, or we take the bus or we ride a bike.

“Bicycles should be about transportation You should be able to go to school, to the grocery store, to work and to the bar on your bike, Cities used to be mixed use. When you separate uses you need a car.”

When we asked about the disconnect between the existing policy and the reality bicyclists face, Rizzieri said upper management already is working on the problem.

If they are, they apparently are doing that work on something other than computer screens or paper.

In late April, after being referred by de Reyes to ABQ Rides’s records custodian, we asked for copies of any memos, letters or other records -- including management directives or work rules -- reflecting when bicyclists may take a bike onboard. That search, we were told, turned up only a single copy of the policy: the text on the city’s website.

Rizzieri said ABQ Ride will be arranging meetings with bicycle organizations to discuss bikes on buses, bus driver education and sharing the road. But bicyclists are skeptical about the city’s commitment to bicycle travel.

“Mayor Berry has some vague ideas about bicycle friendliness, but he doesn’t get bicycles as transportation,” said Buntz of Duke City Wheelmen. “It’s a shame; it’s really gone backward. It wasn’t that good under Chavez, but it’s really gone backward.”