Posted on 04/19/2006 6:47:49 AM PDT by CedarDave
The New Mexico Rail Runner Express pulled out of the Alvarado station in Downtown Albuquerque a little after 9 a.m. Tuesday...
Bound for Bernalillo and filled with journalists and the cast and crew of a Rail Runner promotional spot, the train ran north for 22 minutes, switched from its push mode— engine behind— to the pull mode— engine in front— and ran back south. It was time enough to settle in on a comfortable seat on the upper deck and envision a commuter's future.
"Please enjoy the ride," the conductor said, "and welcome aboard." The trains won't begin to run for real until sometime in early July...
By 2008, the train route should extend to Santa Fe. Total price tag: $390 million...
The view? A fast-forward slide show of chain-link fences, shop yards, back porches, flapping laundry, uncountable dog houses, discarded mattresses, old tires, green fields, random pairs of men's pants, homeless shopping carts and a heretofore hidden palette of graffiti.
The locomotive [operates] with a 3,600-horsepower engine that runs on biodiesel fuel...Rail Runner trains will be only two cars each— each holding 200 passengers.
The train's purpose, of course, is to keep people out of their cars as highways become more congested. Rush-hour travel time between Belen and Albuquerque is about 45 minutes today by car— the same as by the new train. But it's estimated to take 82 minutes by car in 2025.
When the train starts running to Santa Fe, it potentially could take thousands of drivers off the roads.
Tuesday's ride was free, like all the train trips will be for the first three months of service. After that, the train will cost $2 one way through the end of the year.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
And, surprize, your car takes you directly to your destination which is unlikely to be downtown Albuquerque (unless you are a government worker). And of course it would help if you widened the interstate to more than two lanes between these locations.
Q. How long is it going to take to pay off $390 million dollars with a fare of $2 and a near empty train taking you from Belen (pop.<7,000) to ABQ to Bernalillo (pop.<7,000)? Answer never!
Another big government boondoggle by Bill Richardson. BTW, outraged over the price of gas? Part of the problem is that King Bill has put off limits existing and promising oil and gas locations, mostly by requiring his state agency to condition permits with so many requirements that companies with valid leases and federal government permission go elsewhere. (Talking about the dry, dusty, treeless, desolete Otereo Mesa area here which the enviro-nazis are protecting like a religious shrine.)
(The Albuquerque Journal is once again free, though you have to view a short advertisement before being linked to the article)
--similar to the Las Vegs monorail--
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Apr-19-Wed-2006/news/6798759.html
Alvarado to Bernillilo, that's a high density run! LOL!
We'd be better off burning $400 million and having a party.
Some reporters and certainly some legislators asked hard questions but answers are meaningless when the Dims control both the state senate and house and the gov's office.
Count me in!
"filled with journalists and the cast and crew of a Rail Runner promotional spot"
After its first few weeks, it'll be empty.
They're going to try to build it to Santa Fe by 2008. Of course, they can get there now on the old, winding 15-20 mph max tracks that comes in from the southeast, but they want to build up the steep inclines just east of La Bajada Hill and come in through the subdivisions to the south of Santa Fe. Can you say NIMBY?
Sargento Richardson
When you think of the nightmares of places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, Albuquerque is ea-zy and a pleasure. It probably will be in the future when it's much bigger.
I don't really know Albuquerque, but those are my observations as an outsider.
Another thing that makes it a pleasure is that people can live outside the city in the peaceful countryside and be downtown in a matter of minutes on the highways--and back to the country again.
And Albuquerque is big enough to have good restaurants and fun things to do. Santa Fe is practically a suburb--or vice versa.
The same state with a 65 MPH speed limit.
Can't expand to the north because of a continuous line of Indian pueblos starting at the north end of ABQ at Tramway Blvd. Can expand to the west of Bernalillo (which is where the northern end of Rio Rancho is). Lots of traffic takes US 550 to I-25 then south to ABQ. That wouldn't be a problem except that 550 is bottlenecked and the interstate is still old two lane each way like it's been since I moved to NM nearly 30 years ago. They fix potholes and restripe occasionally, but that's about it.
East-west I-40 traffic is a mess, especially in the morning and they continually work on the section thru ABQ, though some areas still have '60's bridges. Most traffic on it comes from east of the mountains where all the growth is. Of course, there is no RR there. A couple of years ago they replaced two bridges in the canyon but kept them two lanes. Not only local commuter traffic but lots of 18-wheelers on fast runs to the west coast charging down the grade. One winter when I lived there, rain at the bottom of the grade had frozen, traffic had slowed or stopped and an 18-wheeler came charging down. I was behind him some distance but he saw he couldn't stop and would run over cars. So he went across the median and came to rest on the outside eastbound lanes without hitting anyone. Can't do that anymore as have concrete barriers in the median.
Richardson says he's looking ahead to 2025, but in reality it's only until 2008.
On two-land undivided roads with a wide shoulder.
Down here in the oil patch many two lane roads don't even have shoulders and the limit is 55 mph. Large oilfield trucks all the time. A booming economy here and royalty money from the wells goes to a shiny new idol in ABQ instead of fixing/upgrading roads here. $390 million buys a lot of improvements in an area with an improvished infrastructure and that is the source of a lot of that money in the first place.
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