Modern Streetcar coming to ABQ!!!!!!! (Albuquerque, Los Lunas: real estate, loan, buying)

[J1ndo]

Streetcars are cool, but they really are a poor bargain. They are expensive and inflexible. They often end up consuming the lion's share of transit budgets, too, restricting other means of transit.

Buses don't add nearly the prestige to a city as streetcars, but they are a far more effective means of public transit. They also happen to be cheaper and easier to adapt to new technologies, as they develop.

[GregW]

When city government becomes too onerous for you can do something about it. You can personally run for a seat on the council or planning board or whatever. Join the party that is out of power because they are hungrier and might provide more support. Then go door to door in your district and tell the voters what you propose to do that will benefit them. Ask them for your vote and you will likely be elected.

If you do get into the government you will find out what is actually happening and why thing are done the way they are done. If you don’t like it try to change it. If you do change the system and you don’t like the results then change it again. This is way better than pointless complaining.

Politics is not a spectator sport.

[ABQConvict]

Here is my simplistic, under-thought plan:

Institute a chic, trendy light-rail that connects The westside to Tijeras. This über-cool mode of transport will attract a new class of ridership. Then use the existing Rapid-Ride double-length busses to run on the North-South Blvds. Place nice, air-conditioned/heated terminals with newsstands and streetfood kiosks where the light-rail and bus-lines meet throughout the city. Institute single-fee, all-day passes to all city transportation so that people will use it for shopping trips and access to recreation as well as commuting. All routes should run until 10pm with major routes until 2:30am. Pay for the whole thing with gas-taxes.

Hey, I can dream, right?

ABQConvict

[trappedinNM]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

Here is my simplistic, under-thought plan:

Institute a chic, trendy light-rail that connects The westside to Tijeras.
ABQConvict

What streets would you run the rail on?

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by trappedinNM

What streets would you run the rail on?

I would run it 30 feet above ground and call it the "SUNRAIL"; Lemonade would be served.

ABQConvict

[trappedinNM]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

I would run it 30 feet above ground and call it the "SUNRAIL"; Lemonade would be served.

ABQConvict

If you check one of my older posts, I also think a combination monorail and dedicted LRT system would be a great idea. What streets would you run it on?

I think Tramway and Central to UNM (with a detour to the airport) to downtown to I-25N through the Renaissance <sp> area to Journal Center to Paseo west to Coors to Cottonwood to Intel to Rio Rancho would be a great run.

Another run would connect Coors and Paseo west to Central and reconnect downtown.

Another spur would go from Paso and I-25 east up Paseo to Tramway to Central and Tramway.

Then we need runs from I-25 up Montgomery, and maybe Menaul, with a few intermediate N/S runs. San Mateo N/S from "Paseo" to Central, along with Eubank, and maybe Wyoming. This would serve 80% of the city.

We would need to get 2nd or 4th street in their somehow also.

Expensive? The largest construction project the city ever undertook! Would it pay for itself? Not likely. Would it get used? Yes, if it was designed and operated frequently, I think it would be packed. I just rode the BART two weeks ago and it was full - they are adding capacity their.

We would need parking - I say steal Winrock and make it a regional transportation hub (parking, shopping, etc). The Kelo decision should make that easy enough. The former site of the Beach would be a good hub. The NE corner of Paseo and I-25. The NE corner of Paseo and Coors.

If the city really wants to be progressive, the time to act is now. When it is all over, the RR train will cost a cool billion. For the same money, we could have built miles of clean, dedicated, traffic-free transportation.

Estimates and actuals indicate an average cost per mile of ~$25 million. A billion would have funded 40 miles of dedicated public transportation.

[recycled]

I'm glad the new streetcar proposal in ABQ is generating discussion there about mass transit. I am not a local so I can't say if it is a good plan or not. I grew up in San Francisco, which has one of the better mass transit systems in the USA and is no doubt one of the streetcar meccas of the world. I enjoy streetcars, especially those in San Francisco which are a rolling museum of different models they have bought from other cities around the globe.

I would think that a good mass transit system in a medium sized city like ABQ would be electric powered trolley buses, which get their electrical power from overhead electrical wires suspended along the bus route. They are quiet, non-polluting, very inexpensive to run and maintain, and can share the traffic lanes along surface streets with cars. The trolley bus routes can be built for a fraction of the cost of streetcar lines, in a fraction of the time. Only 5 cities in the US have electric trolley buses, San Francisco, Philly, Boston, Seattle and Dayton. Dozens of others used to have trolley buses in the 1950s and 60s but got rid of them in favor of diesel buses. With Diesel at $5+ per gallon, I'll bet a lot of cities might be re-thinking the electric trolley bus option. Thousands of those nearly 50 year old trolley buses from the 50s and 60s that were sold off in the US are still rolling on the streets of Mexico City, a testament to their quality and longevity. Yes, they have been rebuilt and refurbished, but it proves that money spent on trolley buses today would have a good long term payback.

Too bad no US companies build electric trolley buses or streetcars anymore, all are imported mainly from Europe. Most new electric trolley buses running in the US are made by Czech manufacturer Škoda.

[PJ45]

I agree with Shmikker in that the RR is doing amazely well. Last week I met a woman who commutes from Los Lunas by the RR & Alb bus. She told me that the seats on the RR are full. The Albuquerque housing market is one of the few markets that is not experiencing a major drop.

I would support adding a monorail system to the Albuquerque transit system. Back in the 80's, when UNM was getting rid of alot of its main campus parking, an Engineering Student told me the following idea. I'm not sure if it was his or if he got it from somewhere else or whatever, but I've always thought it was pretty smart.

1) Run Monorail lines along/over the arroyos and ditches that are all over Bernalillo County.

2) The funding could come in part by eliminating all parking at UNM and selling UNM staff/faculty/students discounted Alb transit passes instead parking permits. I would include CNM, and all city, county, state & federal employees working downtown

If I had more time I would commit more, but this was the basics of his idea. Got to go!

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by trappedinNM

If you check one of my older posts, I also think a combination monorail and dedicted LRT system would be a great idea. What streets would you run it on?

Seriously, If such a thing were to be implemented, I think a ring-route along Central, 4th, Montgomery, and Eubank back down to Central would cover the city pretty well.

ABQConvict

[mortimer]

PJ45 reminisced:

> ... agree with Shmikker in that the RR is doing amazely well.

That' s because you are simply observing heads in the windows and not applying any real metrics to the equation.

> ... woman who commutes from Los Lunas by the RR ... told me that
> the seats on the RR are full.

Maybe it is and maybe she's lying. I know someone else who rides it daily from Los Lunas and he says the cars tend to be half-full.

Even if they were completely full, it would not be an indication that it is in any way an effective use of funds.

Again, I'm all for the RR and support subsidizing it, but the numbers much be abhorrent or they would proudly be publishing them. I'm also for transparency in reporting this stuff and not making people outside of the service area pay for it.

recycled wrote:

> ... I enjoy streetcars, ... San Francisco which are a rolling museum ...

I like the term "museum" It's because they are ancient, outdated, and inferior technology when compared to a simple city bus.

> ... good mass transit system ... electric powered trolley buses, ... Dayton.

Those are great. I grew up in Dayton and I know them. They are far superior to the light rail systems with their inflexible routing and hugely expensive rolling stock and fantastically exorbitant cost of route construction (the rails themselves).

There is nothing inherently wrong with clean diesel city busses however - especially when combined with hybrid drive technology. We have some of these in Albuquerque.

> Too bad no US companies build electric trolley buses ...

That wouldn't be an issue if some cities installed them. It's not that much of a stretch to build them from the existing framework of normal city busses that are built here in this country.

trappedinNM wondered:

> > .... chic, trendy light-rail that connects The westside to Tijeras.

> What streets would you run the rail on?

I-40.