Once again, the Land of Enchantment fought hard for the title of Lanterne rouge in the annual Bicycle-Friendly States competition. Only North Dakota (50th) and Alabama (49th) managed to beat us. We scored in the bottom quintile in three of the five categories, making it to the second worst quintile in Education/Encouragement and Legislation/Enforcement, even though many of the bills we fought to have passed only made it as far as the round file.
New Mexico is a poor state with a lot of road to maintain and a lot of poverty. One cannot ask for perfection. One should ask for better than this. Those hit hardest are not the kitted out cyclists with good jobs, who have plenty of options, but those people who depend on the bicycle for basic transportation such as kids riding to school, the poor, and those who cannot afford to load up the car and kids and find nice places to ride somewhere else.
I'm starting to think that for New Mexico cyclists, the partially paved shoulder should be the state symbol:
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| Partial shoulder paving on US 70 E. of Las Cruces Parts of US 70 are NM State Bike Route 7 |
For the full state by state discussion, go to the League blog post
Click to enlarge the chart, or go to the LAB Blog article
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