BOSQUE TRAIL BROADENS HORIZONS FOR ALL
New $2M trail makes area accessible to wheelchairs, bikes, strollers, hikers
Mary Beresford maneuvers her motorized wheelchair across the Atrisco Siphon Bridge on Tuesday, signalling the completion of a 4-mile, ADA-accessible trail through the bosque. Mayor Richard Berry, at the dedication, noted the struggle involved in getting the ADA-accessible trail constructed, from clearing the area that had been trashed to persevering against competing plans that surfaced, from some who wanted no groomed trail at all, others who wanted to keep it away from the river, and some who wanted a trail so narrow wheelchairs would not safely fit.
For the first time in the 20 years that Mary Beresford has lived in Albuquerque, she can maneuver her motorized wheelchair “close enough to the river to actually hear it.”
On Tuesday, Beresford and others crossed the newly installed Atrisco Siphon Bridge, signalling the end of a two-year, $2 million project to construct an ADA-accessible trail through the bosque.
“I’d always been like 50 feet away from the river and never could get close,” she said. Now, Beresford can park her car in a lot at Central Avenue or Montaño and travel along the bosque trail — a distance of more than four miles through what conservationists say is the largest cottonwood forest in America.
“This is not a building code issue. This is not an architectural standards issue. This is a civil rights issue,” she said. Borrowing from television’s “Star Trek” program, Beresford observed, “now I get to go boldly where everybody else has gone before.”
Mayor Richard Berry noted the struggle involved in getting the ADA-accessible trail constructed.
“This is our bosque and, for a long time, it unfortunately wasn’t everybody’s bosque.” The area along the bosque, he said, was mostly traversed by people who’d cut miles of their own trails, leaving trash and debris behind.
In 2010, Berry began looking for infrastructure projects that would enhance the natural living environment of the community, said Michael Riordan, Albuquerque’s chief operating officer. The Rio Grande Vision plan grew out of that in 2012 and was immediately assailed by groups who had their own vision for the bosque. Many of these people didn’t want a groomed trail at all; others fought to keep the trail as far from the river as possible; and still others thought that, if there was to be a trail, it should be no wider than 3 feet — too narrow to safely and simultaneously accommodate people in wheelchairs with passing bicyclists or those pushing strollers.
The trail as it exists today is at least 6 feet wide in most places and was constructed of crusher fines over a prepared sub-grade.
Berry thanked community residents who, like Beresford, offered advice and ideas, and the employees from various city departments who helped plan the design and provided the labor.
He also thanked members of the Bosque Youth Corps, who over the past few summers removed trash and old fencing, installed directional signs, replaced vandalized signs, pruned and trimmed branches, painted metal handrails, and planted native grasses and shrubs throughout the bosque and over rogue trails, returning them to their natural state.
“As mayor of Albuquerque, it has been my mission to find innovative ways to allow residents of all abilities to enjoy our parks and recreational facilities,” Berry told those assembled. “We should, as a community, protect and be great stewards, and pass this along to the next generation better than we found it.”
The project was completed in four phases: Connecting Central to I-40; Campbell Road to I-40; Campbell Road to Montaño; and finally the completion of the Atrisco Siphon Bridge between Central and I-40, along with the addition of the ADAparking and path at Tingley Beach, providing access to the Army Corps of Engineers overlook deck.
In the coming months, city workers will construct an additional 1,000 feet of crusher-fine trail, linking the Central and Tingley parking area to the overlook deck.