Fiesta gets bike riders ready for National Bike to School Day

Las Cruces Public Schools already has the most successful Safe Routes to Schools (SRTS) program in New Mexico, and one of the best in the United States. Started in 2005, the program is still growing as it wraps up the current school year, moves into summer and looks forward to 2023-24.

Long-time SRTS Coordinator Ashleigh Curry works with teachers, principals, parents, students and volunteers and a wide range of community partners to grow walk and bike to school programs at every LCPS elementary school – in Las Cruces, Mesilla and Doña Ana and on White Sands Missile Range.

SRTS has some several big events coming up:

• Family Bike Fiesta (Fiesta de Bicicleta): 9 a.m.-noon, Saturday, April 29, at Lynn Middle School, 950 S. Walnut St. It will feature bike repair, a bike rodeo that includes Las Cruces Police Department Codes Enforcement Officers, bike spa (bike wash), a learn-to-ride-a-bike clinic (training wheels included) staffed by local high school students, a bicycle skills course, bike races, games bike art. And, “every child who needs a helmet gets a free helmet” at the event, Curry said. Officials from the Look for Me pedestrian and bicycle safety program, a partnership between the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT and the University of New Mexico, will also participate in the fiesta. There will also be a community bike ride at nearby Young Park.

The event is free and open to the public and is designed to get bike riders ready for National Bike to School Day (see below).

LCPS and SRTS fiesta partners include the nonprofit Velo Cruces and its Hub bicycle shop and Everybody Rides with Grace adaptive bike program, along with the Las Cruces Optimist Club.

This event drew more than 100 students, who brought their bikes, and more than 100 parents and nearly that many teachers and other school staff and volunteers, Curry said.

• National Bike to School Day: Twenty-three LCPS elementary schools will participate:

▪ Tuesday, May 2: Alameda, Highland and Mesilla elementaries;

▪ Wednesday, May 3: Cesar Chavez, East Picacho, Sonoma, Sunrise and University Hills elementaries;

▪ Thursday, May 4: Conlee, Desert Hills, Hermosa Heights and Mesilla Park elementaries;

▪ Friday, May 5: Booker T. Washington, Central, Hillrise, Loma Heights (tentative), MacArthur, Monte Vista and Valley View elementaries;

▪ Tuesday, May 9: Doña Ana Elementary;

▪ Friday, May 12: White Sands Elementary;

▪ Thursday, May 18: Tombaugh Elementary.

Students, school staff, parents and volunteers meet at locations near their schools between 7:15 and 7:30 the mornings of their event and bike together to school.

East Picacho Elementary School participants, for example, will meet the southeast corner of Northwind and Westwind roads, for a bike ride down Westwind Road to north Valley Drive and then to the school. MacArthur Elementary School participants will meet at Valley Verde Park for the nearly one-mile bike ride to MacArthur Elementary, 1751 W. Hadley Ave.

Working with The Hub bicycle shop (part of the nonprofit Cruces Creatives makerspace), SRTS can help kids get flat tires fixed and other repairs made to their bikes and even get bicycles for kids who don’t have them or want to trade for a better bike, Curry said.

SRTS began in 2006 at Hillrise Elementary School as a pilot program started by the Mesilla Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization. Mesilla Elementary School signed on in 2008, with Ashleigh Curry joining Dawn Sanchez and others as parent volunteers for the program.

Curry became LCPS’ Safe Routes coordinator in 2010.

Thanks to more than $530,000 in NMDOT grant funds – including $350,000 new money, Curry’s SRTS coordinator position moved this year from half- to full-time.

“We believe in what you do,” was NMDOT’s message to the Las Cruces SRTS, Curry said.

The additional funding will allow SRTS to do more programming, provide more education in the classroom and organize bike clubs at more LCPS elementaries, she said.

Two LCPS elementaries, Mesilla and Mesilla Park, already have bike clubs, with Mesilla Elementary students meeting every Tuesday morning to bike to school and Mesilla Park Elementary hosting an after-school bike club, Curry said.

MacArthur Elementary School’s bike to school program is led by Coach Danny Ortega and school security guard Ruben “44” Archuleta, Curry said. As they did in 2022, MacArthur Elementary students will bike to the Doña Ana County Government Building to attend a county commission meeting on April 25 in celebration of National Bike to School day.

Curry also is a leader in statewide SRTS programming that includes schools in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

And, she is working with NMDOT, the Town of Mesilla and Zia Middle School on bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements at Zia, including bike lanes, sidewalks and multi-use trails.

“I love what I do,” Curry said.

Visit www.facebook.com/lcsrts.