July 31, 2025
Practically 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per 12 months, and an analogous share don’t have entry to a automobile
Sabina Wohlmuth’s days used to incorporate lengthy, scorching walks throughout town of Albuquerque, generally two or three miles at a time. Wohlmuth relied on the bus, however when she was brief on money, she walked as an alternative of paying the fare.
“It was solely a greenback for a one-way journey, however nonetheless, in case you’re homeless and also you’re poor, that’s some huge cash,” Wohlmuth mentioned.
Wohlmuth now takes the bus each day to her job at McDonald’s, to the shop, and to the sober residing facility the place she stays. And every of these bus journeys value Wohlmuth zero {dollars}.
Albuquerque made zero-fare transit everlasting in November 2023, turning into one of many largest U.S. cities to implement zero-fare transit. A couple of 12 months and a half later, transit officers and advocates say the zero-fare program is working as supposed, by serving town’s lowest-income residents. As another mid-sized cities stroll again their plans to make transit free, in Albuquerque, this system is sticking round.
“This can be a public service, and the folks that we serve actually depend on it,” says Leslie Keener, director of the Metropolis of Albuquerque’s transit division. “I believe it’s a strategy to actually simply open up entry and create mobility so that folks have the chance to have some upward motion.”
Mobility for survival
Practically 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per 12 months, and an analogous share don’t have entry to a automobile, Subsequent Metropolis stories. Making it simpler for town’s lowest-income residents to get round is a part of what Christopher Ramirez calls “the primary function of public transit.”
“Transit fairness is giving the individuals which might be most in want the assets, after which constructing out different facets of public transit, ” says Ramirez, the co-founder and government director of Collectively for Brothers. In 2017, the group group performed a group well being affect evaluation that led to a deal with transit fairness advocacy. Beginning in 2019, the group group has led a coalition to push at no cost transit in Albuquerque.
Many bus riders in Albuquerque are experiencing homelessness and depend on the bus to get to medical appointments, social service suppliers, work, and to go to family and friends.
Charles Battiste says he takes the bus each day. On a Wednesday in February, Battiste was using the bus west on Central Avenue, town’s primary thoroughfare, from a methadone remedy program to a resort the place he’d just lately secured non permanent housing on the opposite facet of city.
Q, a 32-year-old who has been unhoused since they had been 18, additionally rode the bus down Central Avenue that day in the wrong way, to select up some drugs for a cough at a hospital. Like Battiste, Q depends on the bus day by day.
“Transportation comes up often as one of many high obstacles for our purchasers and people we serve in accessing well being care, jobs, housing, the entire issues that we all know are the structural options to homelessness,” says Rachel Biggs, chief technique officer at Albuquerque Well being Take care of the Homeless.
“We all know individuals in Albuquerque are stretched actually skinny, even the oldsters who aren’t already residing and experiencing homelessness. The numbers of individuals residing in poverty and who want transportation assist simply proceed to develop, and we now have lots of transit-dependent residents.”
Biggs says her group beforehand spent about $50,000 a 12 months buying bus passes for purchasers so they may make appointments, search for housing, and get to work. This created a “actually cumbersome system” that concerned purchasers shuttling from town’s shelter on the far west facet of city to Well being Take care of the Homeless’s workplace early within the morning to select up a free day by day bus cross, then “turning round and getting again on the bus” to achieve their locations for the day. Month-to-month passes had been much less possible due to the frequency that folks experiencing homelessness misplaced their passes amid encampment sweeps, Biggs says.
“Particularly once you’re experiencing homelessness, time is a really beneficial useful resource. So to have the ability to get round city and never must undergo all of the hoop-jumping, with the intention to now hop on and hop off, it does improve entry to all of the companies and all of the issues that somebody would want to finish their homelessness,” Biggs says.
For different Albuquerque residents, free public transit serves as a lifeline, an important mobility possibility when cash is tight or different transportation falls by means of. One 67-year-old lady discovered herself on the bus after her automotive was repossessed as a result of difficulties making ends meet just lately. “It’s good to have one thing that’s free, once you’ve all the time pushed, you’ve all the time paid insurance coverage, and also you pay for nearly the whole lot,” she says.
Erica Grier, who works as a part-time caregiver and makes use of a Part 8 voucher to afford housing, makes use of the bus each day. She estimates she beforehand spent at the least $20 a month on the bus, cash that’s now again in her pocket to pay for groceries and different month-to-month bills. “It’s service that town supplies, identical to how the library is free,” she says.
Keener says town has seen ridership shift because the pandemic launched a brand new period of distant work and Albuquerque launched free transit: fewer commuters, and extra individuals experiencing homelessness who can now extra simply use the bus to achieve their locations or who’re utilizing it as shelter from the weather.
Recovering ridership
Ridership has steadily elevated since Albuquerque first piloted zero fares in 2022, with total ridership up 20% prior to now three years. Metropolis officers credit score the zero fare program with serving to ABQ Trip’s ridership numbers creep again up towards pre-pandemic figures.
Like Albuquerque, Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, made headlines when it turned the primary main U.S. metropolis to go fare-free in 2020. However 5 years later, the Kansas Metropolis Council voted to carry again $2 fares in an try and stave off main service cuts amid a price range shortfall.
However for now, at the least, it looks like Albuquerque’s free fares are sticking round.
Fare income beforehand “wasn’t a lot of something,” in line with Keener, and introduced in about $3 million in income earlier than the price of amassing fare was deducted. That represented a drop within the bucket for the transit company’s $67 million annual price range, comprised of about $23 million from town’s transportation infrastructure tax and about $8 million from the county and different regional authorities entities. The remainder of the price range is sponsored from town’s Common Fund to the tune of about $30 million every year.
The town’s just lately authorized price range for fiscal 12 months 2026 saved this subsidy, and town “stands behind its Zero Fares system,” in line with Keener, who added that the company’s focus proper now could be on increasing routes and growing service frequency. ABQ Trip served seven million riders in 2024, which is about 78% of the company’s pre-pandemic ridership numbers, however ABQ Trip can also be working at solely 64% of its pre-pandemic service, with diminished frequency on many routes and a few headways of as much as an hour.
ABQ Trip is within the means of implementing a revamped “restoration community” that goals to carry the company again to about 95% of pre-pandemic service, in line with Keener, since returning to 100% of service ranges wouldn’t be financially possible. The proposed restoration community contains streamlining and restructuring some routes to offset the prices of accelerating frequency and night and weekend service. The reconfiguring is anticipated to extend the variety of residents inside a half-mile of a route with frequent service.
Ramirez views increasing frequency as the following step after making buses free.
In accordance with Ramirez, ABQ Trip has lengthy tried to do “quite a bit with a little bit,” with the restoration plan elevating questions of whether or not the company ought to deal with having as many routes as doable or bettering service in high-passenger areas. “We’d like extra frequency within the locations that want it most,” he says.
“The bus needs to be for everyone. It needs to be to attach individuals who want it most to get the place they should go,” he says. “It’s individuals getting to colleges, it’s individuals attending to work, it’s individuals getting open air, it’s individuals getting meals, it’s individuals attending to healthcare.”
This story was supported with grant funding from The Neal Peirce Basis.
This story was produced by Subsequent Metropolis and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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