Get Real Mr. Rael

With the Rail Runner in its free-trip-fueled honeymoon period and politicians talking about running the gravy train to Taos and Espanola, it might seem that the Rail Runner is a huge success. Instead, as nationally syndicated writer Paul Jacob points out in his “Common Sense” alert, taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be used (or abused) in order to gin up support for higher taxes. The article can be found here and a link to the audio file is here.
The fact is that all we know about the RailRunner is that it is costing taxpayers gobs of money and that if you offer free trips, people will ride the train during the Holidays. Now that people are paying $8 to ride the train and that the Holidays are over, we’ll have a better idea of its popularity…so don’t get those tracks moving to Taos just yet.
Lastly, as I mentioned in a previous posting we are having an event in Santa Fe near the terminus of the Rail Runner on the 14th of January. Unfortunately, as illustrated in the Rail Runner’s online schedule, I can’t ride the train to a 5pm event because I’d have to leave Albuquerque by 10:45am and cool my heals in Santa Fe for 5 hours waiting for the event. Then, because the event ends at 7pm I’d have to wait around until 8:15pm and wouldn’t arrive home until close to 10pm.
With my car I can leave Albuquerque at 3:45pm and will get back by 8pm.