The Growth of Uptown

This weekend marked a major victory for those of us without cars in Albuquerque (at least, those of us who live along the 766 Rapid Ride line). This weekend, a new Trader Joe's opened in ABQ Uptown! Yes, finally we can get our jars of pineapple salsa, our affordable blocks of feta cheese and affordable organic food, without having to beg our friends to drive us to Paseo del Norte.


And hey, look at their mural inside the store!


This is just the latest addition in a long rebuilding (and rebranding) of the Uptown neighborhood. ABQ Uptown, the faux-urban and rather cheesy (yet strangley compelling) outdoor retail mall has proven quite popular and has in many respects inspired elements of other developments in Albuquerque, such as the proposed Winrock Town Center just across the street.

It's not exactly high-density and not quite what comes to mind when one thinks of "mixed-use" (given that the housing is separated from the retail by a gated fence and a street), but they've done a strangley good job selling each component of the development, judging by how many of the retail spaces are occupied, how many cars are in the housing development, and how they've managed to do what Downtown has never managed to do: attract a major grocery store. It's really no wonder ABQ Uptown is an example other developers are looking at.


And it has certainly changed the face of Uptown, and set the neighborhood in a right direction. Wide, welcoming sidewalks? Street parking? A walkable outdoor area? These are elements that no one would have linked with Uptown not so long ago. And these elements are apparently only going to expand and perhaps get better with ABQ Uptown Phase III and the Winrock Town Center across the street, but these are private spaces isolated from each other by large roadways. How can we make the connections, the public space between these sites, mutli-modal friendly?

There are three major trouble spots which impend pedestrians in Uptown. The first is the massive parking lot surrounding the Winrock Center - a factor already under work; the second is the massive parking lot surrounding the Coronado Center; and the third is the great divider of Uptown: Louisiana Blvd, an eight-lane roadway with one or two left turn lanes in the middle. Elsewhere in Uptown, pedestrians enjoy a fairly friendly environment: two lanes in each direction with a pleasant median, wide tree-lined sidewalks, and a slightly more dense pattern of buildings - still surrounded by parking lots, but not as dangerous for pedestrians as those that surround the malls.

So here's some ideas for making the neighborhood more pedestrian-friendly:

1) Knock off that right lane.

Louisiana Blvd has four lanes running in each direction; not only an effective barrier to crossing the street, but also unpleasent just to be near. Perhaps a good step to encouraging pedestrian use here would be to convert the right lane of traffic into a parking lane, with bulb-outs at the intersections for pedestrians. Or, if the general feeling is that there's enough parking to go around already, then convert it into a bus only lane. Or a bicycling lane. Or both.

2) Extend crossing time.

Right now, just about every intersection in Uptown has pedestrian crosswalks, but the time they allot you means you have to really dash across the street to make it. Let's have a little extra time.

3) Fly over Louisiana.

Even with a couple fewer lanes and longer crossing time, Louisiana will still be a hazard to pedestrians. I dislike pedestrian bridges in general, but maybe a few along Louisiana will be just what we need.

4) Or ride across it.

Establish an Uptown circulator bus route, like the D-Ride, to connect all the different components of Uptown. And make sure you get those buses right up next to the door, so we don't have to trudge through those massive parking lots which will unfortauntely remain until the landowner decides to do a little infill.