Rail Runner Express Line Now Stretches 117 Miles
Published Jul 07, 2009
The Alvarado Transportation Center in downtown Albuquerque is a connecting point for Rail Runner Express, Amtrak, Greyhound and local bus service.
On time, within budget and ahead of expectations, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express is being hailed as a textbook example of how commuter rail can reshape a region.
The system opened its last major leg, from Bernalillo north of Albuquerque to New Mexico’s capital city, Santa Fe, in December 2008. The $400 million Rail Runner Express line now stretches 117 miles from Belen south of Albuquerque to Santa Fe, with 13 stations along the way.
About 3,000 passengers have been boarding daily along the 50-mile corridor between Belen and Bernalillo, while the Albuquerque-Santa Fe stretch is expected to average around 4,500 daily riders, according to the Mid-Region Council of Governments, which operates the service in conjunction with the state Department of Transportation.
For the system’s planners, all this is not only realization of a dream, but also the base of a new template for the region in terms of population and business growth.
“What we began five years ago and planned for is done,” says Chris Blewett, Rail Runner Express project manager for the Mid-Region Council of Governments. “We’re very proud that our projections from 2004 held; we brought it in on schedule and on budget, and that took a lot of work.”
Smaller Communities To Benefit
Initial ridership numbers for the expanded system have been a pleasant, if not entirely unexpected, surprise, but Rail Runner Express advocates express confidence that even after the novelty subsides, plenty of riders will use the service regularly.
Moreover, there will be people heading out from the major population centers into some of the smaller cities along the line as growth begins to spring up around stations, Blewett says.
“There are a lot of places where there’s only one road connecting areas,” he says. “And then there’s the whole issue of affordable housing: Most housing in the Santa Fe region is out of people’s price range. There are a lot of people who are living out of the area and drive to and from work, and we think there will be a lot of them taking the train.”
Indeed, communities that were left behind economically when interstate highways were built decades ago now see a chance to lure new business.
“Having the service in place makes the station and the area around it much more valuable, but we got this done so fast it’s caught a lot of people by surprise,” he says. “We’ve been working with a lot of local communities on things like zoning, infrastructure and development plans so they can capitalize.”
This dovetails with the findings of the Mountain Megas study by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., which identified the region as one that would greatly benefit from passenger rail.
“Rail has a chance to impose some order on this huge, super-growth area,” says Mark Muro, policy director of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program. “Development will be more organized and will be sited along the necklace that is this rail corridor. The region has been very proactive about that, and they have embraced reality in a very positive way.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Brian McCord
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