Posted on 9/3/2007, 2:00:48 AM by CedarDave
SANTA FE— Will New Mexico jack up its gasoline taxes? How about some toll roads?
Those are some of the ideas under consideration by a task force as rising costs, dwindling federal funds and an increasingly expensive Rail Runner threaten New Mexico's road and highway projects with a financial train wreck.
~~ snip ~~
Some state lawmakers estimate New Mexico is already half a billion dollars short of money for dozens of highway construction projects around the state.
Some lawmakers are pointing to the money poured into the Rail Runner as evidence of previously misplaced priorities.
The commuter train is projected to cost $400 million— all of it coming from the state— by the time its leg between Bernalillo and Santa Fe is completed in December 2008, Faught said.
"There's a huge bunch of money that's going out of the highway department to pay for mass transit," said Jennings, the state senator who is co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, referring to the Rail Runner.
Critics of the Rail Runner have warned repeatedly that the Rail Runner will never pay for itself, meaning the state will have to subsidize operations.
Currently, only $1.4 million of the $9.5 million in annual operating costs comes from a combination of proceeds from riders' fares and fees the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. pays the state ...
A little over $8 million annually in federal air congestion management funding covers most of the costs, but that disappears in 2009.
The end of that funding means the state will have to assume all operating costs unless another revenue source is found ...
Making the situation worse, the state has given up on getting anytime soon the $75 million it had counted on in federal funding for the Rail Runner.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
PING!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Hey, Mythbusters got some use out of it.
That’s ok, just have your guv call our guv(Perry), he has an all fired sure thing for paying for your roads.
That this statement should even be made by a New Mexico state official is ludricrous.
"Mass transit" and "New Mexico" are mutually exclusive.
And I thought the "rail idiots" resided in Minnesota alone.
Silly me.
Socialists just love mass transit.
A most perfect conveyance of a liberal boondoggle that is way to prominent in political focus these day's.
This is the project that would have largely alleviated the need for the Rail Runner. This section of I-25 is still two-lane and has been little improved since construction in the 1960's or 70's. Improvement to three or four lanes ten years ago would have increased capacity so that the RR would be unlikely to even have been considered except for Richardson's presidential bid.
A [NM]DOT spokesman defended the commuter rail project as an important mass transit project for the future. "These individuals are out of touch with reality," said spokesman S.U. Mahesh. "It's time for these legislators to move away from the horse-and-buggy mentality and embrace the ideals of moving New Mexico forward."
I can't believe that this person said this! Passenger railroads were replaced by roads and cars because they were so inefficient. They make sense in dense urban corridors or between cities too close for efficient air service or with clogged highways (as admitted by the NMDOT itself, the stretch of 75 mph I-25 north of Bernalillo to Santa Fe is at 2/3 capacity and will be so for many years as the presence of numerous Indian pueblos will severely limit corridor growth). That is not the case in New Mexico. Of course, Richardson and Hillary and the other Democrats believe in the state restricting choices and dictating alternatives though they may be more costly and used by a very few.
In the meantime, charges of corruption have surfaced in that the company that just won the construction contract has contributed money and plane rides to Richardson's presidential campaign and a second FOB won the bid for development of the old Santa Fe rail yards [Richardson contributors have rail project interests ( Culture of Corruption?)]. At the end of last week, after this was revealed by the press, King Bill canceled award of the contract and will have it rebid.
You are very perceptive! ;>))
So very true!
Fare recovery is less than 15%. Any Democrat-controlled big city that proposed such a minuscule recovery for "mass" transit would be skewered in the liberal press. Not a peep out of the press in ABQ, though the Journal has belatedly recognized that the RR is taking from needed road projects in the ABQ area.
BTW, a good article in the National Review from last December: Richardson Railroads Taxpayers (New Mexico)
Outside the northeast corridor, the normal fare recovery rate for most big city "mass transit" systems is around 33%.
Bad enough. But the Rail Runner is less than half that.
Not to worry. It will be made up in property tax increases. I recently received a notice of a 1,000% increase in the assessment for a parcel of land I own there.
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