Feds help fund river bike, foot bridge

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Stimulus money is hard at work in Albuquerque with the latest project expected to give pedestrians a spring in their step and bicyclists a little easier time pedaling.

Orange barrels along Interstate 40 have not been uncommon in the city, but the traffic controls on the westbound bridge over the Rio Grande are not about cars and trucks.

Instead they are for first part of a $7.5 million project to build a pedestrian and bicycle bridge immediately north of I-40 above the river.

More than $5 million of the project is being funded by federal stimulus money for a job currently employing more than a dozen workers with an Albuquerque contractor.

Former Gov. Toney Anaya, executive director of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, said the project is more than just an immediate boost to the local economy.

"The initial purpose is certainly to create jobs, stimulate the economy, but the ultimate purpose is to do it with a project that will have long-lasting benefits," Anaya told KRQE News 13. "This is what's so wonderful about this particular project; it will be long-lasting."

Officials say the project was 10 years in the making and the bridge is a first of its kind giving pedestrians and bicyclist another option when it comes to getting across the river.

"Otherwise you have to look at a Paseo del Norte, a Montaño, a Bridge," Mark Motsko of Albuquerque's Department of Municipal Development said. "So there's that potential conflict of vehicular traffic and pedestrians and bicyclist."

But not for long. The bridge is set to open in a few months, just in time for summer.

A river crossing built for cars and trucks would cost hundreds of millions dollars and take much more time.

However Anaya said the U. S. Senate passed a bill giving billions of dollars to transportation projects across the nation although it's too soon to know how it will be distributed.