East Mountain Trails & Bikeways Master Plan - Bernalillo County

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