The City of Albuquerque will spend $500,000 to publicize its stretch of Route 66 and its troubled Albuquerque Rapid Transit system.
The city has issued a request for proposals that will be due April 28. It stated:
The City of Albuquerque Economic Development Department is seeking a qualified marketing firm to develop and implement a comprehensive, multifaceted marketing plan promoting Albuquerque’s Central Avenue as a destination and Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART) as a way to access it. The campaign would primarily target local residents, with secondary emphasis on attracting people from outside the Albuquerque MSA and state of New Mexico.
According to an Associated Press article, Mayor Tim Keller said the ongoing coronavirus pandemic serves as partial motivation for the marketing plan:
City officials said the campaign would be aimed at bringing back locals to Central Avenue and attracting new visitors. Shop owners along the road had complained as years of construction related to Albuquerque Rapid Transit, or ART, hampered business and forced some stores to close. […]
“The businesses on Central need our support more than ever,” he said. “We are going to use this time to make sure that when we get through this challenge, people come back to Route 66. With this investment now, we hope to help prime our community for a comeback all up and down Central.” […]
The marketing firm that will be charged with breathing new life into the Central Avenue corridor will be required to work closely with businesses, property owners, neighborhood associations and community groups in the area. The goals include increasing consumer traffic once the public health emergency is lifted, increasing sales revenue among businesses, boosting the number of hotel bookings and growing ridership on the ART bus route.
Some may find the RFP to publicize Route 66 and ART as darkly humorous. ART has been blamed by a not-insubstantial number of people as harmful to that city’s Route 66 corridor and its businesses.
ART also has been dogged by construction woes, defective buses and, most recently, at least 30 accidents along the line since it went online in November. On top of that, ART is undergoing $500,000 worth of new construction for some safety upgrades.
(Image of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue in 2006 by OpenThreads via Flickr)
Sure! Why not. NM has plenty of free money!
The only money NM has came from its taxpayers. Just as anywhere, there is no such thing a ‘government money’.
In 2015 ridership was down 9% In 2016 ridership was down 14% In 2018 ridership was down 24% and In 2019 ridership was down 49% and city council says public transportation will be free, to save face.