ABQ Journal
By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer on Wed, May 11, 2011
“The turning point for me was when I filled up my gas tank and it was $60,” said Shepherd, 46, minutes before she boarded a bus at the Northwest Transit Center for her daily commute to a Presbyterian Healthcare Services office at Gibson and Yale SE.
Shepherd estimates she can save $3,500 a year by leaving her BMW 325 at home and making the 40 minute-commute by bus each day.
Shepherd isn’t alone. Bus boardings in Albuquerque were 1.06 million in April, up 7.4 percent from April 2010.
With ridership growing nationally, transit systems have an opportunity to change public commuting habits if they offer riders fast, reliable transportation to jobs, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institute.
The national study gives Albuquerque’s transit system high marks for connecting people to jobs, though riders here wait longer than the typical commuter in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, the report found.
Riders here can reach 53 percent of metro-area jobs within 90 minutes, making Albuquerque’s transit system the seventh best in the nation for providing people access to jobs, the study found.
ABQ Ride, Albuquerque’s bus system, also provides better service coverage throughout the metro area than most cities. About 73 percent of working-age residents live within three-quarters of a mile of a transit stop, putting Albuquerque in the top third of metro areas, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit public policy group found.
But Albuquerque ranks in the middle of the pack in service frequency — the length of time commuters must wait at a transit stop during rush hour, the report found. The typical rush-hour commuter in Albuquerque waits 14 minutes for a bus, compared to a median wait of 10 minutes for commuters nationwide.
The study found that Western cities, including Albuquerque, tend have transit systems that are more effective at connecting residents to jobs. Western cities often are confined by natural boundaries that minimize sprawl and make it easier to design effective transit systems, said Alan Berube, Senior Fellow and Research Director and a study author.
“Albuquerque is typical of a lot of Western metropolitan areas, which tend to be more hemmed in by mountains and deserts,” resulting in more compact growth, Berube said in a phone interview this week.
Albuquerque also has a high-degree of job concentration, making it easier to design transit routes that get people to jobs, Berube said. Only 14 percent of metro-area jobs are located more than 10 miles from Downtown, he said. In Philadelphia, by contrast, 64 percent of metro area jobs are located 10 miles or more from its downtown.
Sticker shock at the gas pump on Sunday convinced Marceil Shepherd to begin commuting to work by bus this week.Shepherd estimates she can save $3,500 a year by leaving her BMW 325 at home and making the 40 minute-commute by bus each day.
Shepherd isn’t alone. Bus boardings in Albuquerque were 1.06 million in April, up 7.4 percent from April 2010.
With ridership growing nationally, transit systems have an opportunity to change public commuting habits if they offer riders fast, reliable transportation to jobs, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institute.
The national study gives Albuquerque’s transit system high marks for connecting people to jobs, though riders here wait longer than the typical commuter in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, the report found.
Riders here can reach 53 percent of metro-area jobs within 90 minutes, making Albuquerque’s transit system the seventh best in the nation for providing people access to jobs, the study found.
ABQ Ride, Albuquerque’s bus system, also provides better service coverage throughout the metro area than most cities. About 73 percent of working-age residents live within three-quarters of a mile of a transit stop, putting Albuquerque in the top third of metro areas, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit public policy group found.
But Albuquerque ranks in the middle of the pack in service frequency — the length of time commuters must wait at a transit stop during rush hour, the report found. The typical rush-hour commuter in Albuquerque waits 14 minutes for a bus, compared to a median wait of 10 minutes for commuters nationwide.
The study found that Western cities, including Albuquerque, tend have transit systems that are more effective at connecting residents to jobs. Western cities often are confined by natural boundaries that minimize sprawl and make it easier to design effective transit systems, said Alan Berube, Senior Fellow and Research Director and a study author.
“Albuquerque is typical of a lot of Western metropolitan areas, which tend to be more hemmed in by mountains and deserts,” resulting in more compact growth, Berube said in a phone interview this week.
Albuquerque also has a high-degree of job concentration, making it easier to design transit routes that get people to jobs, Berube said. Only 14 percent of metro-area jobs are located more than 10 miles from Downtown, he said. In Philadelphia, by contrast, 64 percent of metro area jobs are located 10 miles or more from its downtown.
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