Rail Runner ridership down 19 percent since March 2021 reopening
Oct. 4—Passenger travel on the New Mexico Rail Runner Express has declined by 19 percent since the Belen-to-Santa Fe rail service started up again in March 2021 following a year of inactivity brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
But leaders at the Rio Metro Regional Transit District, which oversees the state-owned train, are trying to entice riders back by adding more trains and something passengers have long desired: free internet access.
Tony Sylvester, special projects manager for the Rio Metro Regional Transit District, told members of the Legislature's interim Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Subcommittee he thinks the new offering will "absolutely" draw old and new riders alike.
Sylvester said the transit district has already constructed 96 towers along the roughly 100-mile corridor to create what he called "a mesh network" that will allow uninterrupted internet access by the end of the year.
Sylvester and Dewey V. Cave, executive director of the transit district, gave an update Monday to lawmakers about the train, now in its 16th year of operation.
Based on a survey of 1,300 regular commuters, they said one reason for declining ridership is that 34 percent of work commuters remain on a hybrid schedule in which they alternate between working at home and at the office.
The report said 54 percent of riders said they expect to travel more often in six months but said the "inconvenient schedule" is the main reason for not using the train.
Cave told lawmakers 60 percent of the regular commuters on the train work for the state. The report said 320,000 people took trips on the train in fiscal year 2022.
The state has discounted ridership fares by 75 percent through the end of 2022 in the hope of recapturing some of those riders and attracting new ones.
Sylvester laid out a number of proposed capital projects to improve the service, including renovating and building new facilities at the Albuquerque-based centralized traffic control site.
The project, contingent upon the $3 million purchase of about 8.5 acres of land near the intersection of Coal Avenue and Broadway, will include the building of a second track in that area, as well as upgrades to communications, signals and crossing apparatus.
The transit district would have to raise an estimated $48 million to actually build the facility between 2024 and 2027 — money Sylvester said he hopes it can get from federal funding sources.
When one lawmaker on the committee asked if that estimate was accurate, Sylvester garnered a laugh when he said "none of our numbers have been right" in the past.
The Rail Runner Express, the state's only commuter train service, has transported over 13 million passengers between its inception in the summer of 2006 through June of this year, according to the report presented to the committee.
Its budget, made up in large part by both federal and local funds, is not quite $94 million. Only 10 percent of the budget comes from fares and trackage fees.
It is not the only train service seeing ridership levels drop because of the pandemic. A recent report by the International Union of Railways and McKinsey & Company found that since the start of the pandemic, depending on the region, passenger numbers declined by between 40 and 100 percent, with a global average of around 70 percent.
Rep. Harry Garcia, D-Gallup, asked Cave and Sylvester if the rail service would ever turn a profit.
"Will it ever pay for itself? No," replied Cave.
A 2019 Legislative Finance Report said ridership on the service peaked in 2010 and has decreased every year since. It said the Rail Runner is "generally financially stable and able to maintain operations without raising passenger fares."
