I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
When voters in two new transit districts go to the polls in November, they’ll be asked whether to approve an eighth-cent hike in their gross receipts tax to fund public transportation projects from Taos County to Valencia County.
But in many respects, the vote will be a referendum on the New Mexico Rail Runner Express, the commuter rail line that started service in 2006 and that, by December, will run from Santa Fe to Belen. A positive vote would provide more than $11 million a year to operate the train. Millions more would be used to expand bus service, especially to and from the Rail Runner stations.
If voters nix the sales tax plans on Nov. 4, the state will be forced to seek Rail Runner operating money "wherever we can get it," one official told the New Mexico Independent. Given the Rail Runner’s cool reception in the Legislature in recent months and the decline in federal funding for mass transit, the vote this fall could be a crucial factor in the long-term financial health of the Rail Runner system.
As reported yesterday in the Independent, voters in the Rio Metro and North Central regional transit districts are expected to decide the fate of the tax in their respective regions. The ballot will contain one question: Do you support an eighth-cent hike — 12.5 cents on every $100 purchased — in the gross receipts tax to fund mass transit?
On its face, the measure looks promising. Transit district officials say high gasoline prices and strong demand for public transportation throughout New Mexico should translate into voter support on Election Day. Similar ballot measures around the country this year have proven successful, said Jason Jordan, director of the Center for Transportation Excellence, a mass-transit advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
That’s not to suggest the New Mexico votes will be a slam-dunk, Jordan cautioned. "What seems to be critical is getting across to voters the sense that a measure will improve life in the region." They want a system they can be proud of, even if they don’t ride it daily or weekly, he said.
His group follows mass-transit proposals around the country. So far this year, Jordan said, 10 of 13 ballot measures to expand or maintain public transportation projects have passed. "It’s astounding, the level of success," he said. "The trend is extremely positive," which he said suggests optimism for the votes this fall in New Mexico.
On the other hand, he said, voters have nixed projects in Los Angeles County and around Seattle. "It’s a mixed bag," Jordan said. Some of the opposition has come from a general anti-tax sentiment. At other times voters turned down projects because the initiatives apparently didn’t provide enough money for mass transit or proposed to expand systems to areas voters thought were unnecessary, he said.
The Rio Metro tax vote may indeed be a close one, said Isaac Benton, vice-chairman of the Rio Metro board and an Albuquerque city councilor. "It’s going to be interesting. I hope it goes well. The good image of the Rail Runner should help," he said. But opposition could rise from several sectors, and he’s not yet confident of a win on Nov. 4.
Benton supports the tax hike, though he said he has reservations about using a sales tax to fund public transportation. Such taxes place a disproportionate burden on the poor, he said. Others may oppose the tax proposal because they oppose all tax hikes as a general principle, he said.
But there also could be strenuous objection to the proposed tax hike from those who opposed the Rail Runner from the start, Benton said. "I’m not sure what their motivation is, but it’s real," he said.
One group in that camp will be the Rio Grande Foundation, a research institute in Albuquerque "dedicated to increasing liberty and prosperity." The group cited a litany of concerns as the Rail Runner was being planned. Now that the train is running, there’s no reason to support it with a sales tax hike, said foundation President Paul Gessing. "We’ll definitely advocate against it," he said.
Even if gas hits $5 or $6 a gallon, Gessing said, not enough people will use the Rail Runner to reduce congestion on I-25 or warrant the train’s high operating cost. "We’d be much better off maximizing bus service," he said, by running more buses and taking riders directly to the places they want to go, such as Albuquerque’s West Side, rather than to fixed stations.
Though his group will fight the tax proposal, Gessing said he isn’t sure whether it will pass or fail. "People don’t like to raise taxes, especially in tough economic times. But there are a lot of people who can’t get enough mass transit," he said. "There’s something that warms the heart of a lot of people to see a bus on the street, even if they don’t use it and it’s only partially full."
State Department of Transportation officials are optimistic that voters in both districts will approve the tax, said spokesman S.U. Mahesh, largely because of support shown for the Rail Runner since service began. "People have embraced it," he said, as shown by polls, by the support of municipal governments in the train corridor and by ridership that has grown steadily.
"We expect gas will eventually hit $5 or $6 a gallon, and when people take that into account, and they have the public transportation system that’s going to help a lot of them out, people will make their decision based on what’s going to be best for them," Mahesh said. Between the tax plans’ financial aid for the Rail Runner and planned improvements to bus systems from Taos to Belen, he said, "We’re pretty optimistic this will pass."
If it doesn’t pass in both transit districts, however, it leaves the Rail Runner Express in financial uncertainty. Especially important is support in the Rio Metro district — the counties of Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia — where the tax is expected to raise more than $9 million in its first year. The North Central district will contribute a little over $2 million a year, coming solely from Santa Fe County.
The $11 million-plus in combined tax revenue is crucial to the Rail Runner, given that the train’s annual operating expenses are estimated at $20 million a year once service extends from Bernalillo to Santa Fe. Mahesh noted that the Rail Runner still has one year left of start-up funding from the federal government. After that expires next year, he said, "We’ll be looking wherever we can to get the money for the trains without affecting our other (state transportation) projects."
But with federal transportation funds in decline and the state DOT already under fire from lawmakers over the Rail Runner’s construction cost, there are no easy, obvious sources to tap.
As the Independent reported in May, DOT officials say New Mexico already is shortchanging its road maintenance and construction needs by nearly $350 million a year. And while a state task force last year identified a dozen potential funding sources to pay for pavement, highway overpasses and mass transit, there are no new revenues in the pipeline and none on the horizon — and probably won’t be until the 2008 elections are over and the national economy turns around, the task force’s chairwoman, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, said at the time.
"An election year is probably not a year anyone is going to put a tax hike forward," she said.
