RailRunner Ridership Continues Decline

Surprise, surprise! The heavily-subsidized RailRunner continues to bleed riders. As Kate Nash at The New Mexican reports, traffic on the train declined 11% from the second part of 2009 to the second part of 2010.

The train’s advocates claim that not running the train for Balloon Fiesta had a major impact (and for one month it did have an impact), but ridership declined every single month. Besides, the decision to not run the train for Fiesta was due to budget constraints and the fact that the train loses money with every passenger it carries. If this were not the case, then the train should have run for Governor Martinez’s inauguration.

Gov. Martinez remains non-committal on whether or not to continue the train in the foreseeable future.