East Mountain Trails & Bikeways Master Plan - Bernalillo County

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others could undertake to build trail facilities, or could work with the County to secure grant/foundation funding for facilities and segments of the system. • Some church groups and corporations (e.g. Intel) also have public service programs and funds for community outreach that could potentially be leveraged to build trails under the supervision of Bernalillo County staff. • Selected projects, such as small soft-surface trail connections or small neighborhood accesses, might be built with volunteers from user groups, under the supervision of Bernalillo County staff. Section C. Long Term Management & Maintenance Initial attention to good design will help to reduce maintenance needs. However, once trails and bikeways are developed in the plan area, it is essential to keep them in good condition, in order to promote use, protect the safety of the users and protect the investment. Regular scheduled routine maintenance, such as sweeping, litter removal, and vegetation control, will be required. Systematic inspection will identify problems and help in prioritizing needs. In addition, the maintenance staff needs the capacity to respond to problems reported by citizens, such as graffiti removal, vandalism and emergency repairs. And over time, resources need to be allocated for facility repair, rehabilitation or renovation and upgrades to meet evolving standards. 1. Maintenance Responsibilities Proposed East Mountain trail and bikeway facilities will be under multiple jurisdictions: • Roads, shoulders, sidewalks or sidepaths may be under the jurisdiction of NMDOT, Bernalillo County Public Works, or may be privately owned and maintained by homeowner associations. • Roads, trails and related facilities on National Forest lands are maintained by the US Forest Service. • Bernalillo County Parks and Recreation and Public Works share maintenance responsibilities for trails, with Parks and Recreation responsible for weed and litter and vegetation control and BCPW maintaining signs, benches, fences, trail surfaces and bridges. Trails and related facilities in Open Space lands, City or County, are maintained by the respective Open Space Divisions of Parks and Recreation. BCPW maintains asphalt trails, BCPR maintains soft surface trails. Public Works maintains County road rights-of-way, including mowing, drainage, pruning, sweeping, ice and snow removal and pavement repairs. These divisions are confusing to the user. As county facilities increase in the plan area, it is recommended that the various agencies involved explore the possibility of instituting a central location where citizens can report problems. 2. Approaches for management and maintenance of the system Currently, Bernalillo County has very few trails and bikeway facilities in the plan area. As the County trails and bikeway system develops, maintenance responsibilities will increase. Recommended strategies for supporting the County's maintenance resources include: • implement a trail stewardship program to help maintain trails and bikeways • form partnerships with other organizations, such as user groups, that would be interested in helping maintain trails • seek cooperative agreements between Bernalillo County and other involved entities, such as NMDOT, USFS, City of Albuquerque Open Space that allow for the best use of limited maintenance resources. Page 64 EAST MOUNTAIN TRAILS AND BIKEWAYS MASTER PLAN
The East Mountain Coalition of Neighborhoods and Landowners will be invaluable in helping to craft these strategies, as well as the essential management strategies for education and enforcement. 3. Maintenance Methods Recommended maintenance practices can be found in the Technical Appendix. in excerpts modified from the following documents. For on-street bicycle facilities, City of Albuquerque Comprehensive On-Street Bicycle Plan, November 2000. Comprehensive maintenance program guidelines were developed with this plan, with representation from BCPW, BCPR and BC representatives to the Greater Albuquerque Bicycling Advisory Committee (GABAC) and Greater Albuquerque Recreational Trails Committee (GARTC) on the steering committee. These excellent guidelines are included in this document, but modified to replace references to the City of Albuquerque with appropriate Bernalillo County references. Many of the on-street bicycle routes, parallel trails and crossings, proposed or currently in use in the East Mountain plan area, are on NMDOT facilities. The NM Bicycle-Pedestrian- Equestrian Advisory Plan of the NMDOT, December, 2003 includes the General Recommendations for maintenance, found in the Technical Appendix. Table 5. Maintenance Matrix For paved and soft surface trails, the City of Albuquerque and GARTC have been engaged in developing trail maintenance guidelines (Trail Maintenance Guidelines, March 2003 Draft). These are still in draft form, but are included in the Technical Appendix, again with references to the City replaced by appropriate Bernalillo County references. The USDA Forest Service Trail Construction and Maintenance Notebook should also be consulted as a resource for maintenance of soft surface trails. 4. Maintenance Costs Expanded facilities and increased maintenance responsibilities will result in additional equipment and personnel needs. Currently, Bernalillo County doesn't have a dedicated sweeper for the East Mountain Area. A sweeper is borrowed from the South Valley. This plan recommends purchase of a sweeper (estimated at $80,000) in a future CIP program to be housed in the East Mountains for trail and bikeway maintenance. As facilities expand, it will also be necessary to expand maintenance personnel. One proposal for addressing these needs is for BCPW and BCPR to form a combined county-wide trails and median maintenance crew. Table 5 shows the approximate maintenance cost of different trail and bikeway facilities on a per mile basis. Facility type Maintenance cost per unit* Person hours per year Bikeways (shoulders, signs) No cost increase over regular road maintenance Rural road facilities No cost increase over regular road maintenance Paved multi-use trails $6000 - $9000 per mile 150 - 160 hours per mile Soft surface trails $400 - $1000 per mile 100 – 110 hours per mile Crossings No cost increase over regular road maintenance Staging areas & trail heads $8,000 – 10,000 per acre 400 – 500 hours per acre Access points $400 - $1000 per unit 100 – 110 hours per unit Maintenance costs are affected by the following: • Quality of design and construction of facilities • Level of development of facilities • Use of volunteers • Crew travel time and equipment availability • Level of service* • Ability to share tasks with other agencies * BCPR workers maintain an average of 12 acres per worker; the standard set by NRPA is 4 acres of maintenance per worker. (from BC Parks, Open Space and Trails Master Plan, September 2003) EAST MOUNTAIN TRAILS AND BIKEWAYS MASTER PLAN Page 65
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Cover Photo Credits Top Row Middle
Page 7 and 8:
Executive Summary Bernalillo County
Page 9 and 10:
Table of Contents Chapter I. Introd
Page 11 and 12:
Chapter I. Introduction Bernalillo
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Sections 15 and 16 south of I-40. T
Page 15 and 16:
Chapter II. Policy Context & Public
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Forest Plan have been incorporated
Page 19 and 20:
to persons on the stakeholder and n
Page 21 and 22:
soft-surface off-road trails to com
Page 23 and 24: 8. Work with private landowners and
Page 25 and 26: Chapter III. Existing Conditions &
Page 27 and 28: 3. Soils The soils in the area fall
Page 29 and 30: Figure 5. Vegetation Classification
Page 31 and 32: appropriate level of location of tr
Page 33 and 34: Figure 6. Social Landscape: Pueblos
Page 35 and 36: Table 1. Rights-of-Way on East Moun
Page 37 and 38: Figure 8. Population Projections EA
Page 39 and 40: Figure 10. Roads and Rights-of-Way
Page 41 and 42: Official National Forest maps for t
Page 43 and 44: area and the Estancia Vista area on
Page 45 and 46: NM 14 “Horse Route” on West Sid
Page 47 and 48: Table 2. User Characteristics and P
Page 49 and 50: Table 3. User Characteristic and Pr
Page 51 and 52: Chapter IV. Master Plan The final M
Page 53 and 54: 4. Helping secure, and in some case
Page 55 and 56: trail facilities. Where those facil
Page 57 and 58: ecome critical. Speeds tend to incr
Page 59 and 60: • Paved Multi-use Trails This typ
Page 61 and 62: Areas will typically include signag
Page 63 and 64: Figure 20. The Master Plan EAST MOU
Page 65 and 66: shoulders are proposed for the enti
Page 67 and 68: 12. NM 217 (South Valley Mountain R
Page 69 and 70: Chapter V. Phasing & Implementation
Page 71 and 72: private land owners or the NM State
Page 73: ecreational trails and trail relate
Page 77 and 78: Appendices Appendix A. Key Terms Ap
Page 79 and 80: narrower (8’ minimum) trails with
Page 81 and 82: Appendix C. Generalized Projects an
Page 83 and 84: Priority Projects Improvement Cost
Page 85 and 86: Priority Projects Improvement Cost
Page 87: Appendix D. References Architectura
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East Mountain Trails & Bikeways Master Plan - Bernalillo County

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