Accessing the Copper Trailhead with Together 4 Brothers

So today we are accessing the Copper Trailhead which is up in the foothills of the Sandias on the east side of Albuquerque from the Smiths at Lomas and San Pedro. So we're hopping on the Lomas bus and heading east and come along with us. My name is Baruch Campos. I'm a program coordinator for Together for Brothers. Together for Brothers is a non-profit that works with and for young men of color. Currently we're working with young men in their communities to talk about access to outdoors and recreation as well as transit equity and also transit sovereignty. We want our communities to have the freedom to choose the way that they want to navigate the city and also have access right to those choices. So if we have young people riding their bikes on the streets we want to make sure that they have a safe way to do so and that they're aware of how to maintain a bike and also the rules of the road. Hello my name is Matthew Seney. I'm the youth organizer with Together for Brothers and we're at foothills. My name is David Grubbs. We're here with Together for Brothers. Hi so my name is Anh Pham. I'm organizing with Together for Brothers. So how do you usually access parks and open spaces? Yeah so I usually access parks and open spaces through a car. My parents usually drive me like my family to the foothills and also the bus game. What was it like using transit to access the foothills? Honestly just being on public transportation after like everything happened with COVID and everything it felt good. Yeah so it's actually pretty easy so yeah since I usually use a car to get here I've usually never used the bus and yeah it was easy. All I had to do was just go to a nearby bus stop then scan the bus pass and just hop into the bus. And what do you think would make it easier or better for you and others to access these spaces? More bus routes to access these spaces and bus routes that were like more like more that will come more. Also places like where we are right now at the foothills we want to make sure that our young men and their families also have access to these areas right that very often our low-income communities don't often have access to right for various reasons one of those could be transportation. And why is it important for communities of color men of color to be able to access these spaces? Because we normally don't really like we normally stick to the city and where we're at and these spaces are very beautiful spaces and they're spaces that like to really help our health as well so I think it's important that that we access these spaces for our health. It's good for us to get out and just do hiking, biking, running just to keep us activated and our body active. And I also think it's an issue of a lot of people not being aware as well since a lot of young men of color usually don't have the resources to know about all these places that we have here in Albuquerque. What do you wish more people knew about how to access these spaces more often? I wish more people knew that it's it's a very good inexpensive way to go and access these spaces and that it doesn't take much of your time to do it you could really you got here in 30 minutes so I think that's important for people to know. Get involved with community members you know community partners and also like non-profit organizations like the Albuquerque Brothers which is a great opportunity for young men of color to be able to like access other activities and also be part of something big a project for example like how we were part of free fares so that's that's why you should use public transportation and that's why we're advocating for public transportation to have free fares for everybody so they can have access to other activities and also access to education and recreation.