Light Rail To Come To Albuquerque

Mayor digs in for 2006 rail start

By Frank Zoretich
Albuquerque Tribune Reporter

Groundbreaking will occur three years from now for a two-phase, $700 million light-rail transportation system in Albuquerque, Mayor Martin Chavez predicts.

At a news conference Wednesday, Chavez noted that 2006 will be the city’s 300th birthday and said turning over the first shovelful of dirt to start the light-rail construction project would be "a marvelous way to celebrate."

Phase I would be construction of a $400 million light-rail line along Central Avenue. Chavez said it will be called the "Red Chile Line."

It would carry passengers along Central Avenue from Coors Boulevard on the West Side to Louisiana Boulevard in the Northeast Heights.

The Red Chile Line would probably have an extension northward along Louisiana to shopping malls and other businesses in the Uptown area, Chavez said.

Construction of Phase II – a $200 million "Green Chile Line" – would begin in 2008 or 2009.

The Green Chile Line, which would mostly use existing railroad rights of way looping around the city, would connect the Albuquerque International Sunport with what Chavez has called the city’s "string of pearls" – museums, Old Town and other tourist attractions.

Green Chile Line passengers could change to the Red Chile Line at the Alvarado Transportation Center at Central and First Street Southwest.

Another transfer point would be near the Albuquerque Aquarium and Rio Grande Botanic Garden at the east end of the Central Avenue Bridge over the Rio Grande.

Half of the money to build both the Red and the Green will come from the federal government, Chavez said.

The other half will come from the city, with state assistance, he said.

Two measures being considered by the Legislature would allow city voters to decide whether to support a local-options tax to help raise the city’s "matching share" of costs.

One of those, if approved by city voters, would impose a surcharge on vehicle registration fees for city residents, to provide an estimated $8.5 million a year for light rail.

The other measure – "It would bring in about the same amount," Chavez said – is a proposed gasoline tax of 3 cents a gallon.

The city could also issue revenue bonds to help finance light-rail construction, he said.

In the meantime, before the Red Chile Line gets started, Albuquerque will get what Chavez called "rubber-wheel rapid transit" running along Central Avenue.

By next April, said Peter Behrman, director of the Albuquerque Transit Department, "super express" buses will be zipping along the future route of the Red Chile Line, with stops located about a mile apart rather than every two blocks.

This system, modeled after those operating in Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; and more than a dozen other cities, will use 90-foot-long articulated – or flexed-in-the-middle – buses that can carry 100 passengers and trigger green lights as they move down Central, Behrman said.

The bus rapid-transit system will "simulate" the transportation advantages of light-rail – "It will give a sense of the real deal," Behrman said. He predicted it would attract more riders than the 10,000 a day who board Central Avenue buses.

http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/022703_news_lrail.shtml