Whether people still get their kicks driving down Old Route 66 is the question asked by some people who attended a workshop sponsored by the New Mexico Route 66 Association.

"There will come a day when no one remembers those family trips anymore. They're not old enough to have driven that highway, or have gone on a family trip on it, so it doesn't have the emotional connection," said Cyndie Tidwell.

Tidwell is a contractor hired by the association to complete an update of a corridor management and economic revitalization plan originally developed in 1992 by Anita Miller.

The updated plan will be used as a "foundation for helping determine which projects to seek funding for," according to association literature.

The association received a $25,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration about four years ago to complete the update as part of a scenic byway program, Miller said.

They have held five community workshops to ask the public what they wanted done with the decommissioned highway that runs through their communities.

The last workshop was held at the Moriarty Civic Center and attended by eight people. The other workshops in Tucumcari, Grants, Gallup and Albuquerque had a total of about 100 attendees.

About half of all the people who attended the workshops went to the one in Gallup.

"In Gallup, this road is their economic lifeline," Tidwell said by way of an explanation.

At the Moriarty workshop, Tidwell talked the attendees through Miller's 14 strategies for revitalizing the road.

"In 1985 folks were concerned about the communities that were bypassed by interstates. So economic impact was very significant," Tidwell said.

Tidwell plans to compile a report and integrate it into the original 1992 report. She will also include other demographic data.

The people who attended the Moriarty meeting didn't give Tidwell any specific projects to include, she said.

"But I'll bet they're thinking about it now. They want the drive from Moriarty to Edgewood to be the most authentic Route 66 experience in New Mexico. How they're going to get there I don't know, but that's why they should keep meeting," Tidwell said.

She recommended that both the Moriarty and the Edgewood chambers of commerce form groups to "carry the ball."

"We just can't assume that future generations will understand," Tidwell said.