It was Mayor Richard J. Berry’s legacy; the chance to have his name on a plaque so future generations could see who was responsible for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART) initiative.  The idea was to move the bus lanes to the middle of Central Avenue and establish an express line from downtown up through Nob Hill to San Mateo and on up to the eastern end of the avenue.  Each stop would have a throw-back, neon-lit platform for passengers to embark and disembark. In addition, there was an environmentally green aspect to the project as electric buses were going to be used.

On paper, the project appeared to be a great 21^st century idea focused on efficient metropolitan travel.  Efficiently zipping from downtown out to the foothills was meant to appeal to public transportation commuters, commuters who would change their habits for an updated option, and boost the economic prowess of businesses lining Central Avenue by making access easier.  Mayor Berry had to see the plans and designs on the proposal paper, and immediately see his name on that plaque.

However, the plans and designs didn’t consider many aspects of Albuquerque, New Mexico; not the least of which is the fact that New Mexico – The Land of Enchantment – is also called the land of slow time.  No one is in a hurry, so a rapid transit project was simply a counterculture initiative.  In his defense, Mayor Berry was born in Waterloo Iowa, so he may not have taken – or paid attention in – a local culture class at the University of New Mexico.

Construction went on forever.  It got to the point that it was next to impossible to move east or west on Central Avenue, and going north or south on any cross-street was a backed-up crawl at best.  Drivers got so frustrated at the construction, the construction workers had to have a “don’t blame us” campaign to help keep drivers from cussing them, spitting on them, and/or throwing things at them.  Road rage at 0-2 miles per hour is ugly.

Businesses in the prestigious area of Nob Hill suffered for the duration of the project.  As profits decreased, however, there was an initiative started in Grants, New Mexico to have Central Avenue businesses move to that small, economically-strapped town with a promise that no construction on Main Street would impede their operations.  If nothing else, that idea helped remind the Nob Hill shops that there are worst places to try to run a business, and maybe the construction wasn’t the worst thing to happen to customer traffic.

Albuquerque is a city known for its cars.  People drive in Albuquerque, and there is an appreciation for automobiles like no other place in America.  Another aspect of local culture the mayor may have not considered, cruising Central Avenue is a traditional rite.  Worst of all, the construction forced the low-riders in their classics to find other places to cruise. For anyone not from Albuquerque or New Mexico, messing with the free reign of low-riders is the same as taking the Space Needle out of Seattle, The Gateway Arch out of Saint Louis, the Empire State Building out of New York City, or Madi Gras out of New Orleans.  Yes; those old cars and Central Avenue are that much a part of old Albuquerque culture.

A large population of people experience homelessness is full of people with diverse backgrounds who gather at the Walgreens located on Central and San Mateo so they can walk back downtown to gather at any one of the charity organizations that help them out with clothes, food, shelter, and perhaps enough change to take the bus back up to the Walgreens on Central and San Mateo where they gather and walk back downtown in an endless panhandling cycle.

However, construction was so bad, the people experiencing homelessness and the criminal element vacated Central Avenue.  They just couldn’t make a living there (and had no desire to walk out Interstate-40 and live in Grants), and so they moved their operations over to Menaul Boulevard.  Menaul became the new Central, and the low-economic endeavors that people used to avoid on Central had to now be avoided on Menaul.  East-West traffic anywhere in Albuquerque had to find another, nicer route.  The transportation everywhere in the city was being squeezed.

I personally made the mistake of coming down Monte Vista to where it angles in at the intersection of Girard and Central. Waiting there for the light to change just east of the university, I thought about Central Avenue being part of Old Route 66 – the Mother Road.  Construction had it all torn apart, and they had dug down 12-18 inches below the surface.  I wondered if they had found any cigarette butts that Jack Kerouac may have tossed out the window of his ’47 Hudson. It was sad to see that historic road being ripped up like that.  Some places in America need to be respected and preserved, and no one’s name on a plaque is worth losing the sense – romantic as it may be – of what once was.

Anyway, they finally got the road repaved and the bus stops fixed, but the grand opening was merely a party to send Mayor Berry out of office having served his two terms marked by construction, economic anxiety, expansion of people experiencing homelessness, and lost culture.  The directional road signs are meant to keep cars out of the bus lanes, but the busses don’t use the bus lanes because they are still running the routes like they always have stopping at bus stops on the right on the sidewalk side of the street. 

The new mayor – Tim Keller – took office ready to make the project right.  With new energy, native-born insights, and a willingness to serve his constituency, Mayor Keller quit making excuses for ART, and, recognizing the point of no return, tried to make the best of a bad situation.  The lemon he was squeezing for lemonade, however, came with busses that didn’t have doors that opened to line up with the new platforms.  Neither did those busses have the battery power to hold a charge long enough to make it up Central and back. The last time we saw those busses, they were broken down alongside Intersate-40 unable to make it back to their manufacturer in California. 

The night my mother-in-law died, I drove her car from the hospital up Central Avenue.  Despite the construction still going on at the time, the neon traditions of that part of town spoke to me with their meanings and their sense of historic value.  It was one last time up Central with that Spanish-speaking, chain-smoking, hard-living woman so close to me; her La Llorona, curandera spirit was sitting next with me in the car.  I could hear her straight-forward manner that had welcomed me to New Mexico 3o years before, and it was reminding me of my responsibility that came with marrying into her family; her expectations; her culture.  Respect this place; love this place; don’t try to change or fix this place.  And at that moment, I knew what I hated most about the ART project; she would have never appreciated what it (among other changes) had done to Albuquerque.

Boethius tells us: “Fortune deceives; misfortune educates.” But sometimes misfortune just leaves us with fewer lanes and more traffic congestion.

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