Posted on 12/14/2005 1:10:16 PM PST by CedarDave
SANTA FE— The New Mexico Rail Runner Express will need about $320 million in state transportation money, Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught said Thursday.
At least one lawmaker and legislative analysts say that's about $200 million more in state money for the commuter railroad than they were earlier told.
Faught says she never meant to mislead legislators about the cost.
Gov. Bill Richardson's commuter-train service would link Belen, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. With federal money added in, the total cost is now estimated at around $390 million, Faught said in an interview.
But staff members with the Legislative Finance Committee say Faught, for at least the past year, did not tell the committee that her agency planned to pay nearly $320 million of the train tab with the state transportation funds.
The committee staffers believed that only about $122 million of those funds would be used for the train.
"There was never a statement issued to any of us legislators that said ($300-plus) million dollars is going to build a railroad," finance committee member Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, said Thursday.
"If the Legislature knew of that ... I think they'd be screaming right now," Carraro said. But Faught said "we've always been up-front about the costs."
Money for the Rail Runner Express is expected to be front and center in questioning today, when Faught appears before the committee at the Capitol.
Richardson in 2003 unveiled plans for a commuter-rail system. He said the topic had been studied enough over the years and vowed to put the project on a fast track.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Not her fault if they can't read her mind.
Why ride the train when you can drive on the Turquoise Trail?
Why is federal money (that would be MY money) being used for a local commuter train in only one state? It isn't an interstate highway, it doesn't involve interstate commerce; where exactly is the federal government getting it's authority to spend MY money in this fashion?
Grrrrr...
If it made sense to build a passenger railroad in NM, private industry would have already proposed and financed it.
This is a way for the nuclear secret sharing gov to launder public money into his soon to be failed Presidential campaign.
Willie Green is deeply saddened!
I'll be posting a couple of local articles on King Bill for future keyword access. It angers me that his reputation on the national scene is one of a tax cutter. He has indeed cut some, but raised others. The only reason NM is in the black is because of oil and gas revenues. Even the Democratic controlled Legislative Finance Committee is saying we should not go overboard in spending. But Richardson has gone on a recent spending spree unlike any other I have seen. He bought the BNSF railroad secondary mainline from Belen to Raton a couple of weeks ago and now is pushing the Virgin spaceport venture for $225 million. And he is gradually killing that golden goose by putting areas promising for O&G exploration off limits and increasing regulation for existing production.
That's a lot of dough. People complain here in Vermont because the state subsidizes Amtrak for around $3 million a year (the last figure I heard).
$320 million for a fairly small state is outrageous.
Why don't they just build this into the SpacePort project?
There’s nothing elite liberals love more than mass transit, especially a train, for the “little people”.
"If it made sense to build a passenger railroad in NM, private industry would have already proposed and financed it."
Same goes for automobile roads?
The problems with railroads is that they get taxed to death, then the unions f their corpses (lawyers skim everything). Otherwise they would be a great form of transportation.
Most certainly!
The path between Philadelphia, New York and Boston was well worn even before the start of the nation. Improvements to segments of that trails that connected to form this pathway were financed by private developers who charged a toll. In order for horse carriages to gain access to the trail, the toll collector would lower a "pike" by turning a handle. Thus the origin of the word "turnpike" for modern, limited access highways.
Bridges were the same. There is still a privately owned toll bridge between New Jersey and Pennsylvania operating for over 100 years (http://www.dingmansbridge.com/)
Now, big government financed networks of interconnecting, cross-continent roadways certainly made it easier to for point to point transportation and shipping to take place. Most people would have opted for point to point travel if they could have but the glory days of the train were before the affordably priced auto.
I say all this as a daily commuter on New Jersey Transit!
The Greenway in VA is a privately-owned toll road.
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