[CedarDave]

I'm tired of this crap -- ABQ/SF taxpayers will pay at least 90 percent of the O&M costs -- one former legislator says his colleagues still in the legislature say 99% (no federal money used; the entire state paid the capital costs at the expense of very necessary adjacent highway reconstruction for the first 15 miles). For the remainder of the distance, it's being celebrated as the best thing since sliced bread (that section of the ABQ/SF highway that will not be at capacity for another 15-16 years - NM DOT stats). Click on the keywords Rail Runner or Richardson's Railroad for the whole long story.

[library user]

Bill Richardson is a tool.

[OneWingedShark]

“A tail of seduction, sedition, corruption and waste: The DollarRunner Express takes you into the darkened depth of the human soul faster than the speed of light! Meet Gov. Bill Richardson, a powerful politician who likes drink, trains, and fattening foods... and his cabinet and cabal of ne’er-do-wells as they build an engineering marvel using money stolen from other people!”

[SAJ]

All boondoggles are equal. Some are (evidently) more equal than others.

''Light rail'', et al., are nothing AND CAN BE NOTHING but money pits for the dumbass taxpayer, except in the 3 or 4 areas in the nation where gross population density is high enough to support them on a break-even or near-break-even basis.

Otherwise, they're pure USDA-inspected, Grade A, goobermint pork, for the benefit solely of the friends of the political class that pushed the boondoggle past the idiot voters.

[CedarDave]

NM list PING!

(FReepmail greyfoxx39 to be added or removed from the NM list)

[dr_who]

Quite properly, it'll be a celebration loaded with meaning.

The author is full of meaning, if you catch my drift.

[logician2u]

It's not very kind of the ABQ Journal to keep us non-subscribers from viewing the story online. I'm certain this writer makes a bunch of other statements of equal or greater stupidity to his claim that lives will be saved by this raildoggle. You've whetted my appetite, but not enough to pay for a subscription to the rag. Especially so since it's now the only paper in town, not that the Tribune was all that much better.

As a resident of one of the 30 or so cities all vying for additional federal transportation dollars to build more rail transit, I have a selfish interest in the "success" of this venture. Let's hope Richardson's successor and the Democrat-controlled legislature goes hog-wild and extends the rails in all directions: south to Socorro, west to Grants, east to Santa Rosa or maybe Tucumcari, with a spur up the back side of Sandia Peak to serve all the commuters of Cedar Crest and Sandia Park. All to be built with federal funds, naturally, since everyone knows the state hasn't got the bucks.

I'm sure the state's lobbyists, in concert with the new SecCommerce, would make a convincing case for cutting CO₂ emissions, highway deaths, wild animal roadkill and commuting time. It ought to sail through Congress and be signed by President 0bama.

The price? Oh, maybe $20 billion. Less than the Big 3 bailout, and look at all the benefits it would bring . . to those of us who've tried to stop these stupid rail ventures elsewhere in the country.

You see, unlike loans to banks and grants to automakers, federal funding of transportation projects is not open-ended. Once the five-year pot has been exhausted, it takes another ISTEA or TEA-21 to replenish.

And what better way to spend it than on a huge boondoggle across the center of New Mexico!

[JRios1968]

[logician2u]

Randal O'Toole caught New Mexico's diversion of federal money from highways to rail last year. We'll have to wait and see what he puts together when the ABQ-SantaFe line goes into operation later this month.