Bike Santa Fe Takes Its Community Challenge Grant to the Streets

Bike Santa Fe, a recipient of a 2024 AARP Community Challenge Grant, used the funding it received to take work already underway and dive a little deeper, helping it to better educate city officials about safer streets.

Bike Santa Fe was working to identify the best routes and intersections for improvements that would help bicyclists get from one side of the city to the other, or easily access local trails, knowing that resources for such improvements are limited and therefore, would have to be prioritized.

Photo by Bike Santa Fe

“We had been working with our members and other cycling organizations to identify those routes and intersections when this grant opportunity presented itself, and we thought doing bike audits would be a great way to collect more information to share with the city on how to make Santa Fe easier to get around on by bike,” said Jennifer Webber, Bike Santa Fe president.

The group’s volunteer board members wrote the grant application and, upon being awarded the grant, they not only utilized the resources provided by AARP but also tapped into resources and tech support provided by the League of American Bicyclists.


To identify the bike audit locations, Bike Santa Fe worked from its existing list and met with other local organizations such as Seniors on Bikes and Chainbreakers, among others, to finalize the four routes and two intersections that would be audited. The final list of locations included Richards Avenue by Santa Fe Community College as well as Airport Road.

“We were very interested in doing Airport Road because there is a lot of growth in that part of Santa Fe and so many cyclists and pedestrians cross or walk it. It was also one of the projects included in the bond measure that was just passed in November. Our audit will help form the work that is going to be done on Airport Road,” Webber said.

Once the audits were complete, the findings were presented to the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, the interim city manager, the public works director, and the mayor. City Councilors were also informed about the audits and invited to learn about the findings.


Webber said the information was well received and some of the items the audits brought to light are already being worked on.

“One of the things our members brought to our attention even before the audits, and what we observed, is when you have a bike lane and the street sweepers go through, a lot of times they just sweep the debris from the car lanes into the bike lanes, making them impassable by bike. We raised this issue and identified some key locations, and already we were told by the city it is going to share this information with the folks that do that work, and so we should see some clearer bike lanes,” she said.

“During our audit of Airport Road, we noticed that the pedestrian crossing lights at South Meadows was not long enough to make it across the street, it was just seven seconds long. With schools on either side of Airport Road on South Meadows, it is important that kids be able to cross streets safely,” Webber said.

A similar situation was discovered along Cerrillos road. With the lights timed to turn green so motorists can drive smoothly down the road, the signal to cross the road when a pedestrian was not present to push the walk signal was only seven seconds; not long enough for a bike to cross the six lanes of traffic.

While these early observations have garnered results, the work will not stop there. The bike audits contain useful information but is just the beginning of making safer streets.

“We did our presentations to key decision makers and now we are going to continue to follow through and advocate for these improvements identified in the audits,”
Webber said.

Overall, Webber found the AARP Community Challenge Grant process fairly easy and would encourage any organization that is eligible and has a quick-turnaround project to apply for the funds.

“You have the opportunity to talk with other grantees to both get ideas and talk about your projects and the reporting. It’s a very supportive process,” she said. Bike Santa Fe not only took advantage of the resources AARP provided, but also was able to utilize advice by the League of American Bicyclists.

The deadline to apply for a 2025 AARP Community Challenge Grant is Wednesday, March 5, at 3 p.m. MT (5 p.m. ET.) To learn more or apply visit https://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/community-challenge/info-2025/2025-challenge.html

Photos are courtesy of Bike Santa Fe