Candidate Richard Romero said he opposed a modern streetcar system at NMI’s mayoral forum Wednesday night. Earlier this week, Richard Berry, who is against the idea, slammed Martin Chavez for, essentially, waffling on the issue. But until this week, Romero had not yet weighed in.

Incumbent mayor Martin Chavez and two-term State Rep. Richard Berry have been squabbling about what a streetcar actually is and whether it’s a worthy project for Albuquerque. On Wednesday night, the former state senate president pro tem made it clear that  he’s against the idea.

Here’s what they each said about the streetcar proposal:

Romero: We need to expand the bus system first of all to all quadrants of the city. I am not a supporter of the trolley…in today’s economy…it’s a folly.  …I don’t think we need it currently…I cannot support that given the economy and given

Berry: Public transportation is important. …I think there are things we can do to improve transportation with the dollars we currently have today. … I do not believe that spending 300 million dollars on a trolley, a streetcar, whatever you want to call it, is the best and highest use of tax dollars. We have infrastructure needs all over the city of Albuquerque that need to be handled first.

Chavez: … I absolutely do support a modern rail system for the city of Albuquerque if it’s voted upon by the public, it’s the right thing to do, I’ve never supported a trolley system that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about major cities acting like major cities. And building away from single occupancy vehicles. We can’t continue to build for single occupancy vehicles in this city if we’re going to be successful.