New Mexico Central

Response to “North to Taxland”

by John Weckerle

Normally, I would post this as a comment, but it’s a bit long.

Chuck raises some great points, but I think there may be even more to the story – especially with respect to the anemic ridership numbers.  Given the name of the line – Greater Eldorado Express – and the ridership, I think we can theorize that the primary benefit goes to the Eldorado users.  However, that may be as much a function of schedule as anything else.

Let us first underline Mr. Ring’s acknowledgement that there is currently no fare for riding the buses (we confirmed this by visiting the RTD web site, and we’d like to suggest that they charge everybody a nickel and hire a competent webmaster), that is not to say that riding the bus might not h hidden costs that could outweigh the benefits of a “free” ride.

Let’s look at a few “center to center” mileage and hour estimates collected from Mapquest for the driving distances involved (one way, to Santa Fe) and ridership:

• Edgewood – 62.3 miles, 70 minutes, 5 passengers
• Moriarty – 54.3 miles, 65 minutes, 3 passengers
• Stanley – 42.5 miles, 51 minutes, 3 passengers
• El Dorado, – 13.2 miles, 23 minutes, 25 passengers

If there is really anybody who takes 70 minutes to get from Edgewood to Santa Fe, I look forward to waving as I pass them the next time I make the trip.

Now I’d like for everybody to take a look at information taken from the GEE line schedule.  There is one bus going to Santa Fe in the morning, and one coming from Santa Fe in the afternoon, available to riders from Edgewood/Moriarty/Stanley.  El Dorado has two buses in each direction in addition to those that they share with the southern route. If you are leaving and returning from the southern route communities, you’re looking at the following:

• Edgewood – leave at 6:08 a.m., return at 6:55 p.m.  Total day including commute: 12 hours, 47 minutes
• Moriarty – leave at 6:20 a.m,. return at 6:42 p.m.  Total day including commute: 12 hours, 22 minutes
• Stanley – leave at 6:35 a.m., return at 6:27 p.m.  Total day including commute: 11 hours, 52 minutes

Essentially, riding this bus line means carving half of the 24 hours out of a solar day – not to mention whatever time it takes to actually get to and from the bus stop.  People with families – especially children in school – are often not in a position to do this.

All things considered, it seems that the RTD should probably have taken a much closer look at this proposition before moving on it.  In its own way, it’s an admirable concept, but it’s clearly not working, and is far from economically sound practice.  Assuming 36 riders a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, and a cost of $240,000, that’s a staggering $25.64 per round trip.

Friday, September 19th, 2008, by John Weckerle and is filed under "Uncategorized ". You can leave a response here, or send a Trackback from your own site.