Should Albuquerque set up a Route 66 state park?

Jon Knudsen, a longtime resident of Albuquerque and a University of New Mexico instructor, posited an intriguing idea during an op-ed piece in the New Mexico Market Place: Placing a Route 66 state park in the middle of the city to help draw visitors with RVs or large trailers.

He writes:

What about a place for tourists to park those rigs, unhitch their cars and spend a day or two enjoying the best urban stretch of Route 66 in the country? Better yet, let’s guide them to hop on one of our new buses with a three-day pass to stop and explore wherever their fancy dictates. After all, the city is spending about $120 million on the Albuquerque Rapid Transit system.

Why not a state park on East Central? Besides being on the Mother Road of America, it is close to half a dozen RV dealers and their repair shops, the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, a casino, both the Sandia and Manzano mountains, plus all kinds of stores and restaurants. Even Nob Hill is not that far away — and its lack of parking for RVs would not be a problem. But perhaps the best reason is the space is there, and it is right inside the city.

Knudsen says two properties in Albuquerque come to mind. One is the New Mexico State Fairgrounds, which certainly would have plenty of parking during non-event times.

The other is the old Ponderosa RV Park. Both properties are owned by the state.

He also suggests a large pedestrian bridge, and not just for practicalities, either.

But this wouldn’t be complete without a large pedestrian bridge spanning East Central with a huge “Route 66” and “Albuquerque” emblazoned across it, the kind of feature that would make people want to get their picture taken at the top. Just imagine that image showing up on thousands of Facebook pages throughout the world.

I-40 is what Route 66 used to be: a river of people and vehicles traveling day and night across the country. Let’s build a little diversion dam right here by creating an eddy for RVers to find a safe place to land and spend some time on old Route 66 once more.

It seems the idea is worth a look — especially considering much of Central Avenue (aka Route 66) is becoming more of a pedestrian and mass-transit area for better or for worse, thanks to the Albuquerque Rapid Transit project.

If ART turns out to be a lemon, it’s time for city and state planners to try to make some lemonade out of it.

(Image of the Ponderosa RV Park sign in 2007 by Kelly Ludwig via Flickr)

4 thoughts on “Should Albuquerque set up a Route 66 state park?

  1. This is a brilliant proposal! We would have LOVED to have something like this available when we were exploring the mother road a couple years ago. We have a Class A, and, even at that pre-ART point, Central was scary-narrow to navigate. We would have loved to explore more, but there was no where safe to park the rig and leave it, nor was there an obvious or comfortable way to get around. If this were advertised right and had a shuttle service available to certain points, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t spawn a whole new subset of businesses catering to this crowd. This is forward-thinking lemonade even if ART doesn’t turn out to be a lemon!

  2. I don’t think this is such a bad idea, but I certainly would take the word “Park” out of it. There is nothing parklike about that stretch of road. Wayside, Traveler’s Rest, Stop and Rest, anything but Park. Also, it had better have restrooms, maps, and vending machines; the things one expects at any decent roadside rest area. Also, that stretch of road is currently home to many transients. And how do you convince them not to use the free restrooms? It may work if they ever get the area “cleaned up”.

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