Nob Hill station rendering at Bryn Mawr Dr. and Central Ave. Photo provided courtesy of Albuquerque Rapid Transit
Albuquerque, NM is home to the nation’s first gold-standard bus rapid transit (BRT) line, according to the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy, a global nonprofit with expertise in BRT systems. Known as Albuquerque Rapid Transit, or ART, the line began limited operations late last year. To learn more about ART and the work Albuquerque is doing along the route, we spoke with one of the planners who worked to bring high-quality BRT to the southwest on this month’s episode of Building Better Communities with Transit.
Podcast host Jeff Wood talks with Brian Reilly, former Economic Development Director in Buffalo, NY and Cleveland, OH and the Principal of the planning consultancy Doing Good, about integrating transportation and land use in Albuquerque. As Reilly explains, ART is just one project but it forms a frequent and reliable backbone for Albuquerque’s entire transportation system. Today, the city is focused on redevelopment along the Central Avenue corridor where ART runs, part of the historic Route 66. Reilly also talks about how the city is approaching poverty reduction from a transportation angle.
Building Better Communities with Transit is intended to provide more support to communities and local leaders who are working to catalyze new development around transit, give more people access to public transportation, increase access to opportunity, and build robust local economies.
The podcast is available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Checkout all the episodes at TODresources.org’s podcast page. A new episode is released every month!