For better or for ill, Mayor Richard Berry on Wednesday signed a $82.6 million contract for a local firm to begin construction of the controversial Albuquerque Rapid Transit project along Central Avenue (aka Route 66).
According to the Albuquerque Journal:
Heavy demolition and disruptions along a nine-mile stretch of Central Avenue are expected to begin in mid-October as Bradbury Stamm puts hundreds of people to work building a network of bus-only lanes and bus stations between Louisiana and Coors.
Berry said he hopes the project will reach “substantial completion” by the time he leaves office. His second four-year term as mayor ends Nov. 30 next year.
Congress hasn’t allocated a critical $69 million grant for the project, although it’s expected to arrive eventually.
A lawsuit challenging ART still is winding its way through an appeals court, although judges allowed construction to go ahead. The contractor must finish the job in 480 days or be subject to penalties for each day it’s delayed.
The nearly $120 million ART project would carve out two center bus lanes Central Avenue, aka Route 66. The project, shepherded by Berry and passed 7-2 across partisan lines by the city council, aims to make Albuquerque more attractive to millennials and cutting-edge employers.
At least 150 businesses — many of them on Central Avenue — stated their opposition to ART and launched a website against it. They say the lengthy construction time and reductions in vehicular traffic will hurt their businesses.
(Artist’s rendering of Albuquerque Rapid Transit near the University of New Mexico)