By John Fleck

The Better Burque Tactical Urbanism Team (BBTUT) rode out this morning to check out the New Mexico Department of Transportation’s new “I25 Improved” freeway reconstruction project. We* are excited about the promised “barrier-separated shared-use paths for pedestrians and cyclists” when the project is completed in (check’s web site claim) 2027!

We** are less excited about the project’s current approach to helping non-auto-driving humans get safely through this area in the meantime. The officially designated project “bike detour” turns the 1.2 mile stretch crossing the freeway in this area to 5.2 miles. WTF? For a slow old person like me, that adds nearly a half hour in each direction. That’s not a serious attempt to help non-motorized users get through the construction zone safely and efficiently. That’s checking a box. “Bike detour? Check.”

Further evidence is the fact that we also didn’t find any of the required bike detour signs. No one working on the project apparently actually expected anyone to use a bike detour taking them four miles out of their way in each direction, though there is a nice map on the web site.

I’m not a traffic engineer, so I can’t second-guess what might meet federal guidelines requiring that the detour “should be as short and direct as practical.” The BBTUT, with a wealth of local knowledge of the zigs and zags of getting safely through this hellscape, might have some suggestions, though we fear “cutting through Top Golf and the Wendy’s parking lot” might not meet MUTCD.

Or, to move beyond my quip to the actual MUTCD, there are shorter and more direct ways of crossing the freeway in this area that with some modest investment in safety infrastructure could (we as non-traffic engineers believe) suffice – something the federal guidelines (Section 6N.04 of the MUTCD) make clear is an option.

Again, I’m not a traffic engineer. But the fact that actual traffic engineers signed off on this makes clear that “traffic engineer” really means what I’ve always suspected – “traffic” equals “cars.” This doesn’t give me a great deal of confidence in the pedestrian and bike infrastructure parts of this project.

* I do not speak for the entire BBTUT on this point.

** I do speak for the entire BBTUT on this point.