What's going on, Albuquerque?

Morning Fix - Ducklings

State tries to monetize Indian Casino's "Free Play" gimmick, and renegotiate with tribes.
Wolfpack comes to Loboland again, this time for first bowl game of the season. Conventional wisdom says they'll play the Arizona Wildcats.
Update on a different kind of wolfpack, the one where the feds removed the momma wolf.
Shockingly, local Nursery and their entire mail order operation are kaput.
ABQ Ride looking for input on Central routes. A dedicated lane? Timed lights for buses only?
Colorado co. offers "internet mugshot removal" service to New Mexicans. That's weird.
City will pick up green waste curbside from Dec. 3rd to the 14th.
This is the best news story of the day.
NPR story on the state of young women's health in juvenile detention centers features Albuquerque.

Tags: ABQRide, MorningFix, casinos, mugshots, wolfpack

0 members like this

Comment by RunLikeADog on November 27, 2012 at 7:47am: Bummer about Santa Fe Greenhouses. I guess someone forgot to tell David Salman that the economy was great.

Comment by Masshole in Fringecrest on November 27, 2012 at 8:38am: My gut tells me there's more to the story than that. Divorce? Lawsuit? I dunno. Their mail order operation was very highly regarded and businesses like that don't go from expanding (into ABQ), to flat growth, to closed in less than two years. And the new houses that are built around here are mostly devoid of landscaping, or have the wrong landscaping, which spells lots of opportunity for them, so I just don't get it...

Comment by ramon t on November 27, 2012 at 9:06am: That is too bad. I was going to make a run to them in the spring and spend some significant coin there landscaping our new house. Oh well.

Comment by hettie on November 27, 2012 at 10:25am: Advice to ABQ Ride about bus service: stop focusing on Central and pay attention to ANY other area of the city. For instance, Why isn't there rapid ride service on Montgomery? Or any rapid ride connection between Central and Montgomery on a major north-south street, like San Mateo? Here's another idea: The 5 bus that serves Carlisle and Montgomery (and connects the UNM/CNM area with CNM's campus near Montgomery and Juan Tabo) is heavily used throughout the day. Why not add a rapid ride bus to that route? It's like the route planners are blind to anything but the Central corridor. Yes, rapid rides have been successful there, now move on to serving the rest of the city! Guess we'll have to try and attend one of the meetings.....

Comment by once banned twice shy on November 27, 2012 at 10:48am: Masshole: agreed. There was no hint of the place going out of business when I was last there in September. Usually places start selling off inventory and telling the public they need to move the inventory. I smell something going on there.

RamonT: Go to Jericho Nursery instead. Great people and great selection of plants.

Hettie: WORD. How about a Rapid Ride on Paseo del Norte? Instead of continually throwing a bazillion dollars at expanding roads and interchanges, what about a bazillion dollars thrown to a real transit system? Hell, if you had a Rapid Ride on Paseo and good connections, you might even see some "fancy" people on the bus.

Comment by SLF on November 27, 2012 at 10:58am: What I heard (this is a while back, I must admit) is that the next Rapid Ride would be the Lomas 11 bus.

Comment by RunLikeADog on November 27, 2012 at 11:14am: I suppose all of the speculation regarding Santa Fe Greenhouses could be true, however all we really have is the owners statements to go on. Speaking from experience, one would be surprised at the lack of planning on the part of many business for an exit strategy should conditions for a business go south. That is because most business owners are not programmed to fail, they focus on success. Bottom line; my bet is the economy and competition from Big Box stores killed this business.

Comment by Aaron Greenwood on November 27, 2012 at 11:36am: Talking about fancy people on the bus. In the 70s I worked on building a custom home in the Piedmont Hills with views of the entire San Francisco Bay. That one house took us a year to build, but what a house. The foundation took 4 months itself given the slope of the hill it was built on. The interior was an architectural wonder. Let's just say few could afford such luxury.

The East Bay has one of the most advanced public transportation systems in the world connecting to another world class system on the San Francisco side of the bay. Buses run into Piedmont on a limited basis. The "help" rides in on the morning buses and the suits ride out making connections where money is made. That was the year I arrived in California with $5 and change. A dude I knew got me a job as a laborer working on that that house. I rode the buses until I saved enough to get a car. The suits took the bus because the subway to SF was better than crossing the bridge and parking. The "help" took the bus because it was all they had.

I don't think public transportation is something people desire, but use when in need. It is not a bad thing per se but it is not widely desired. I used public transportation in England and Boston extensively. It worked well for its time and place. People don't want to mingle with strangers especially in situations they might get harmed. Real or not, few people have a positive perception of public transportation. There are good reasons for that.

I personally think the gasoline powered vehicle has outlasted its usefulness and agree it is quite dangerous to the environment but the world wants automobiles. Safe, ecologically sound transportation is a big problem that will not be solved by 19th century solutions. We need lifestyle technological changes more than we need buses. That is another whole discussion.

Comment by Dan M on November 27, 2012 at 12:18pm: SLF: The next Rapid Rides will be on Montgomery, San Mateo and/or Paseo.

OBTS: Totally agree. With the money they are spending on that interchange, ABQ could build a world-class bus transit system AND a really good bicycle network. Oh well. I guess sprawl is a "better investment .

Hettie: The reason Central gets so much focus is because ~%50 of ALL bus ridership in the city is on that single corridor.

The project they are trying to do there now is not Rapid Ride; it's a full Bus Rapid Transit project, which has the potential to transform the corridor. You should definitely go to the meeting; there's a lot of good info there. For a look at what could this Central project is being based on, read about the HealthLine in Cleveland.

Comment by Phil_0 on November 27, 2012 at 1:21pm: Dan M: Central is obviously the spine of ABQ's bus network, but I'd argue it's already pretty well-served, especially in comparison to other areas. With respect to the Rapid Ride, Montgomery buses get heavy use, especially between Carlisle and Wyoming. Based on how packed the 5 is lately, I think we'd see a significant spike in ridership if the city added more frequent service. I imagine the frequency of buses is a big reason why ridership on Central has climbed so high.

As a counterpoint, I noticed on the bus today that the city is eliminating bus service on Louisiana north of Montgomery as of mid-December. The transit system has improved dramatically in the last 10 years, but I agree that the city needs to be very careful about putting all its transit eggs in the Central basket.