Editorial, 08/21/2007 - Rail Runner hearing: Blithe spirits, local critics?

Environmental impact is the topic of today’s public hearing on commuter-rail service between Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Belén — but the state Department of Transportation can’t delay much longer deciding where the train stations must go.

And because rails are being promoted as traffic- and pollution-reducing alternatives to automobiles, this hearing could provide an important preview of coming attractions and detractions — as well as a chance for Santa Feans to give DOT your ideas on train service.

The hearing, at Genoveva Chávez Community Center, begins at 5:30 p.m. The main presentation is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

The Rail Runner, already operating between Belén and Bernalillo, is scheduled — or is that wished? — to reach Santa Fe by the end of next year. And unlike the route now being served, the Bernalillo-Santa Fe portion will involve nearly 12 miles of new track up the middle of Interstate 25. So there’s not lots of time for deciding where — if at all — passengers will be able to get on and off the diesel-electric train between the Bernalillo station and the Córdova Road/state-office-buildings station. From there, it will chug on into the rapidly redeveloping Railyard. Before those stations, let’s have another.

The train’s main purpose is to get people out of their cars for the Albuquerque-Santa Fe commute — which traffic planners say will only get longer as traffic stacks up between the two cities. To make the train trip attractive, it’ll have to be more than merely comfortable; if it doesn’t cut, or at least match, today’s traveling time, commuters might continue taking their chances with white-knuckle car racing.

In an age when, in some countries, 200-mph trains are old hat, we remain puzzled over Gov. Bill Richardson’s insistence on cars and engines not notably different from what rumbled along our state’s rails in the 1880s. But that being the case, the last thing the Rail Runner needs for its commuter service are more stops, with slow going into and out of the station.

So what’ll be needed are “limiteds” — trains making limited stops during morning and afternoon rush hours. But if Rail Runner plans are for eight to 12 trips a day in each direction, why not make some of them “milk runs” serving several stations here and in Albuquerque?

Environmental assessments of the project’s worth have made a big deal about how many fewer cars would be on the streets and roads along the route; they’re overly optimistic, in our view, especially when it comes to traffic backed up at intersections when the trains go by. The St. Francis Drive/Cerrillos Road corner is being viewed with a blitheness unwarranted for that messy crossing.

For transportation experts’ traffic guessing to gain credibility, the Rail Runner should serve intra- as well as inter-city travel. For the “limited,” make a stop at Cerrillos Road and I-25.

In our area, it could do so with stations starting at La Cienega, then Cerrillos Road at I-25, Richards Avenue, St. Francis Drive, Zia Road, Siringo Road and somewhere near St. Michael’s Drive.

That could be pretty poky traveling, even if stoplights are set so the train glides through major intersections. But service to the south side, perhaps some day with connections to the crowded southwestern part of town, might well persuade people to do less driving.

Besides air-pollution questions and those of safety and traffic flow, the hearing likely will address concerns such as noise, threats to wildlife and its habitat, impacts on flood plains and wetlands and effects on cultural resources. The Rail Runner people have been pretty optimistic about all that and more; if they still are after today’s hearing, we’d be a bit surprised: Siempre Santa Fe, and all that …