July 31, 2025
Practically 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per 12 months, and an identical share don’t have entry to a automobile
Sabina Wohlmuth’s days used to incorporate lengthy, scorching walks throughout town of Albuquerque, typically two or three miles at a time. Wohlmuth relied on the bus, however when she was quick on money, she walked as a substitute 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 on daily basis to her job at McDonald’s, to the shop, and to the sober dwelling facility the place she stays. And every of these bus journeys value Wohlmuth zero {dollars}.
Albuquerque made zero-fare transit everlasting in November 2023, changing 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 meant, 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 people who we serve actually depend on it,” says Leslie Keener, director of the Metropolis of Albuquerque’s transit division. “I feel it’s a solution to actually simply open up entry and create mobility so that individuals 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 identical share don’t have entry to a automobile, Subsequent Metropolis studies. 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 folks which can be most in want the sources, after which constructing out different facets of public transit, ” says Ramirez, the co-founder and govt director of Collectively for Brothers. In 2017, the group group performed a group well being affect evaluation that led to a give attention to transit fairness advocacy. Beginning in 2019, the group group has led a coalition to push without 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 on daily basis. On a Wednesday in February, Battiste was driving the bus west on Central Avenue, town’s fundamental thoroughfare, from a methadone remedy program to a resort the place he’d lately secured short-term housing on the opposite aspect of city.
Q, a 32-year-old who has been unhoused since they have been 18, additionally rode the bus down Central Avenue that day in the wrong way, to choose up some medication for a cough at a hospital. Like Battiste, Q depends on the bus each day.
“Transportation comes up ceaselessly as one of many prime limitations 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 folks in Albuquerque are stretched actually skinny, even the parents who aren’t already dwelling and experiencing homelessness. The numbers of individuals dwelling in poverty and who want transportation assist simply proceed to develop, and we’ve loads 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 aspect of city to Well being Take care of the Homeless’s workplace early within the morning to choose up a free each day bus cross, then “turning round and getting again on the bus” to succeed in their locations for the day. Month-to-month passes have been much less possible due to the frequency that individuals experiencing homelessness misplaced their passes amid encampment sweeps, Biggs says.
“Particularly if you’re experiencing homelessness, time is a really precious useful resource. So to have the ability to get round city and never must undergo all of the hoop-jumping, so to now hop on and hop off, it does improve entry to all of the providers and all of the issues that somebody would wish 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 on account of difficulties making ends meet lately. “It’s good to have one thing that’s free, if you’ve at all times pushed, you’ve at all times paid insurance coverage, and also you pay for nearly every part,” 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 on daily basis. She estimates she beforehand spent no less than $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 a very good service that town supplies, identical to how the library is free,” she says.
Keener says town has seen ridership shift for the reason that pandemic launched a brand new period of distant work and Albuquerque launched free transit: fewer commuters, and extra folks experiencing homelessness who can now extra simply use the bus to succeed in 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 general ridership up 20% previously three years. Metropolis officers credit score the zero fare program with serving to ABQ Experience’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 deliver again $2 fares in an try to stave off main service cuts amid a price range shortfall.
However for now, no less than, 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 gathering 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 backed from town’s Normal Fund to the tune of about $30 million annually.
The town’s lately permitted 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’s on increasing routes and rising service frequency. ABQ Experience served seven million riders in 2024, which is about 78% of the company’s pre-pandemic ridership numbers, however ABQ Experience can 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 Experience is within the technique of implementing a revamped “restoration community” that goals to deliver 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 consists of streamlining and restructuring some routes to offset the prices of accelerating frequency and night and weekend service. The reconfiguring is predicted 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 Experience has lengthy tried to do “quite a bit with a bit,” with the restoration plan elevating questions of whether or not the company ought to give attention to having as many routes as potential or enhancing service in high-passenger areas. “We’d like extra frequency within the locations that want it most,” he says.
“The bus ought to be for everyone. It ought to be to attach individuals who want it most to get the place they should go,” he says. “It’s folks getting to colleges, it’s folks attending to work, it’s folks getting outside, it’s folks getting meals, it’s folks 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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