Albuquerque citizens gathered Saturday at the Alvarado Transportation Center to celebrate the past and future of public transportation for city’s first Train Day.
People toured the inside of the Rail Runner and an Amtrak Superliner. Train Day has been celebrated nationally since 2008, but this is the first year Albuquerque participated.
City Councilor Isaac Benton, who also works with the Middle Rio Grande Regional Transit District, said he is intrigued by trains’ efficiency, romance and sheer power.
“The country was really built by rail,” he said. “Our city, our downtown didn’t exist until we brought rail here.”
Before Albuquerque became a metropolis, it was a small, rural community in 1880, said Steven Bradford, of the New Mexico Steam Locomotive and Railroad Historical Society. He said trains helped Albuquerque grow into its present form.
“You can see the economic impact of having a railroad come into town in the 1880s,” Bradford said. “It brought money from the East Coast. It brought people from the East Coast. It brought all sorts of economic benefits, and, even more, good or bad, it brought a lot of cultural changes.”
Today, rail and public transportation is being used to change our fossil-fuel-intensive culture, said Dewey Cave, executive director of the Middle Rio Grande Council of Governments. He said that as New Mexico grows, rail will become an important mode of transportation.
“What we are seeing today is a kind of a revival of that rail travel,” Cave said.
Janet Schlotthauer, Amtrak district manager, said she recommends train travel because, unlike road trips, passengers can move around the caboose, and, unlike air travel, they aren’t exposed to strict security.
“I hope they take away what Amtrak can offer — what the Rail Runner can offer, in terms of alternative means of transportation,” she said.
The trains didn’t skip a beat making their scheduled runs in and out of the Alvarado Transportation Station.
People also spent time on a bus during a city-wide scavenger hunt.
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Contestants rode the ABQ Ride buses looking for clues around town.
“Our daily ridership right now, between Monday and Friday, is 48,000, and we’re very close to 12 million boardings for this fiscal year,” said Bruce Rizzieri, director of ABQ Ride.
Bobby Sisneros, an ABQ Ride employee, said public transportation is important for improving environmental quality, saving money on gas and for promoting urban growth. He said Albuquerque public transit will one day mirror New York, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Los Angeles’ transit systems.
“There isn’t a successful city on the planet without a successful public transportation system,” he said.” If you can’t move your citizens around the city, then your city just collapses.”
