The Rail Runner is going on five years of operations soon. Like many things we tend to look at it as it passes by and don't really think about what it took to bring into reality. This is a video I took on its opening run to Santa Fe in 2008.
RailRunner from James Baca on Vimeo.
6 comments:
There's some pretty good pieces of footage in there for doing it on the fly like that. Like riding a bicycle, ay?
The Rail Runner should go all the way up and down I-25 and all the way across I-40. On the east coast, people commute by train farther than it is from Gallup to Albuquerque, hundreds of thousands of them do.
You could live in Grants or Gallup and work in Albuquerque, or you could set up a business out there where things cost half as much, and people who live in the city would have more job opportunities.
In July 2013, Larry Abraham, Mayor of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, wrote in a Journal op-ed, "My understanding is that the payments are approximately $18million per year, with two balloon payments in 2025 and 2027 of nearly $230 million each.
Operationally, the budget for the Rail Runner is approximately $23 million a year, with fare box revenue being $3.2 million or 13.5percent of the total operating budget.
Putting this in even bleaker perspective over the span of 20 years, the true cost of the Rail Runner is close to $1.3 billion, with revenues of only $60 million."
If this was one of Big Bill's dreams to bring him notoriety, it has failed hugely.
Tea baggers never check the oil in their cars or the air in their tires, never get a checkup. Their roofs leak, their heaters and air conditioners don't work, their septic tanks are full. Their children go to school and spread typhoid and smallpox. Their motto: You gotta run a household like you run a economy gov'ment.
To anonymous: You don't get it obviously. I just despise politicians that waste tax dollars and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle they're from. For many pols, it's about limelight, money and book deals, and not about public service. I don't have a problem with busses, but the Roadrunner was supposed to be Richardson's flagship and it's sinking. PS, you don't know anything about my politics, but I now know a lot more about yours.
I like Baca for posting anonymous comments because some are interesting. The one above is indicative of a coward. I can profile him though as a NM bitter republican who has probably been in the midst of scandal before in some small way...and is now just an unhappy person. Like most tea party types....very sad.
In don't know why neoconservatives insist that a govt budget should mirror a household budget. But they do. But then they demure when confronted with the reality that households don't spend the way they push government budgets. In their frame of mind there'd be ammo but no milk, bibles but no literature, soldiers but no teachers, and wood burning stoves but no solar cells.
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