It’s a good sign when a community is well on its way to creating a contiguous set of bike boulevards so long the whole route shows up really, really small when illustrated. Albuquerque is getting darn close to being such a community:

Big apologies for the lack of graphics skill, but I’ve taken the 2017 ABQ Bike Map and added, crudely:

• The route of the Fair Heights Bike Boulevard from its northern terminus at the Tom Bolack Urban Dog Park adjacent to I-40 to its connection to the Silver Bike Boulevard at Monroe and Silver;
•  The proposed protected bike lanes on Lead and Coal downtown between 2nd and 8th Street; and,
• A little squiggy extending the newish Silver Bike Boulevard 2.0 to the Bosque Path via (and the small residential streets here give us choices) a route adjacent/near Kit Carson Park.

By my “put it all in Google Map Directions” method, I get the full route at 7.8 miles. That’s 7.8 miles to get from I-40 and Louisiana to the Bosque, about as opposite an urban juxtaposition as is possible, all along Bike Boulevard. The word “amazing” gets used too frequently, so let’s go with “awesome” or “tubular” if we want to sound like Spicoli in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

I’m good with however you want to express your reaction. In fact, do so here; this route is/would be ____________.

I added “would be” because two of my crudely drawn additions haven’t happened yet. Fair Heights is a reality, and that’s saying something because there was a long time when it didn’t look like it could be pulled off (big thanks to those whose overcame obstacles to make it happen). The project on Lead/Coal from 2nd to 8th is still somewhere in that hazy bureaucratic, economic development limbo many BB readers know only too well.

The third addition, the little squiggy from Silver (or maybe Lead) from around 14th Street that will form the final bike boulevard bridge to the Valhalla that is the Bosque/Bosque Multi-Use Path, will be part of a discussion about further improvements for the Silver Bike Boulevard (Version 3.0?) coming up next Monday late afternoon, December 11th, at this month’s Greater Albuquerque Bicycling Advisory Committee.

BB readers are encouraged to attend, as we’d like to really sit down and collectively ponder how to make the segments of Silver Bike Boulevard better west of Yale all the way to that Valhalla. This, of course, includes current obstacles to safety, such as getting across I-25 at Lead/Coal.

There is that…

Hope to see you there. If you can’t make it, feel more than free to drop a comment here or elsewhere. If you don’t know where “elsewhere” is, i.e., you don’t know who to contact, drop a comment here or at BB’s Facebook page, and we’ll work to answer that question for you.