August 05, 2009

Cycling over I-25 in Albuqurque

I'm very blessed living here in Northern New Mexico. The Albuquerque & Santa Fe area is very conducive to running & cycling. There are great running & cycling trails in & around Albuquerque. Santa Fe has great areas to bike outside the city limits, yet God help you if you try to bike inside them.

Now that the New Mexico Rail Runner is open, my favorite weekend activity is to take my bike on the Rail Runner from the Santa Fe 599 stop to the Albuquerque Journal stop West of I-25 on Paseo Del Norte. I then ride my bike from the Journal stop to Paseo Del Norte, then Tramway to Route 66, then north on Highway 14. It's approximately a 70 mile ride from the Rail Runner to my house. The Rail Runner is a dream come true for cyclists & triathletes-well, a dream come true mostly. Has anyone else realized it's a nightmare to get from one side of I-25 to the other on a bicycle?

The overpass of Paseo Del Norte has no bike path & it's a nightmare to ride on that street in traffic. On Paseo Del Norte there's not even a side walk going East bound. Not that a side walk would help, it's illegal for cyclists to ride on sidewalks. Now, I'm not complaining about that particular law I agree cyclists shouldn't ride on sidewalks. But where does that leave us who ride rather than drive to get from one side of I-25 to another? Alameda & San Antonio don't have bike paths to allow safe passage over or under I-25 either. Where does the transportation department expect us on 2 wheels to cross without causing cycling deaths & vehicular road rage? Is there a great crossing I don't know of? If not is there a movement to get something done? If there's not yet a group pushing for a crossing, & anyone else agrees that there needs to be one please tell me. Feel free to email me if your not comfortable posting comments on my blog.

2 comments:

SWTrigal said...

We did that ride (The other way) last weekend. It was awesome! We took a road that had a bike lane down to the bike trail near San Antonio, then SA short block to Jefferson (turned north). I know you can get on a bike trail to Comanche down to the journal center too. Not sure if this solves your problem and would take out Tramway..

Bones said...

Hey Cody, we usually go under I25 at Tramway. I believe you can go down to 4th and that all the way up to tramway.