The city of Albuquerque and the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) are launching an awareness campaign to get drivers ready for the new designated ART bus lane in the ART lanes on Central Avenue.
The ABQ Ride ART bus drivers will start their training on July 22. The APD will start to give drivers warnings in order to educate them on how the ART lanes work.
“Today, we are beginning a coordinated public outreach campaign to educate drivers about staying out of the ART lanes,” said Lawrence Rael, Albuquerqye’s chief operating officer. “We’re starting now to give drivers as much lead time as possible to get used to the new flow of traffic. What better way to do it than with buses actually in the ART lanes during driver training.”
According to APD, this is about driver safety education, not enforcement. “We haven’t been giving warnings or tickets so far because ART buses haven’t been using the corridor,” said APD Traffic Commander Donovan Rivera. “Now that they’ll be running the full route on a regular basis, drivers can keep themselves and bus drivers safe by learning how to drive alongside the buses. During training, we’ll only issue warnings to remind people of the proper use of the lanes and why it keeps them as well as ART drivers and passengers safe.”
After training ends, APD will issue tickets to drivers violating the ART lanes, with fines of $80 for failing to obey the “Bus Only” signs, or for crossing the double white line. It is possible for drivers to incur fines for both infractions at the same time.
Driver training will consist of:
• Docking at the stations;
• Adjusting to the height of the ART platform;
• Using the doors on both sides of the bus;
• Deploying the bridge plates for wheelchairs;
• Testing of Transit Signal Priority along the corridor; and
• Testing the automatic wheelchair restraint.
As a reminder, message boards will be deployed along the nine-mile long ART corridor for the first few weeks of the trainings to remind drivers to “Stay in Your Lane.”
