LFC report: Rail Runner needs to boost ridership to offset emissions
Oct. 18—Due to low ridership numbers, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express is producing more carbon emissions than would be created if all the passengers drove instead, according to a recent report.
But increasing ridership in a changing commuter landscape may be easier said than done.
On weekdays, the train, which runs both ways from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and Belen, carries an average of 1,900 passengers, according to the Legislative Finance Committee's October newsletter. Including passengers driving to train stations plus emissions from the train itself, that produces an estimated 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide, LFC staffers wrote.
If those passengers had driven instead, their vehicle would have produced 9,900 tons of carbon dioxide, the report says. To break even, ridership would need to increase about 23% every day. A progress report for the Rail Runner is scheduled for an Oct. 23 meeting of the LFC.
The newsletter says staffers plan to present the report to the committee at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday.
Augusta Meyers, spokesperson for Rio Metro Regional Transit, told The New Mexican the transit district is always trying to increase ridership. But it's a "moving target," Meyers said, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. While some commuters, many of them state employees, returned to the train in the years after 2020, they now rarely ride on a five-day-per-week schedule, Meyers said.
In 2019, more than a third of the people working in Santa Fe County commuted, according to a five-year survey sample collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Of those thousands of workers, the vast majority — more than 90% — traveled by car. A little over 6% used the train.
A 2022 report from Homewise on the relationship between Santa Fe's housing affordability and carbon emissions attributed between 10% and 21% of Santa Fe County's greenhouse gas emissions to commuting.
A 2019 LFC report warned about decreasing ridership, which peaked in fiscal year 2010 and dropped in the following nine-year period.
To combat the drop in ridership, the Rail Runner beefed up the schedule last August, Meyers said — and it's been working. But some dynamics have changed, with more people riding the train for entertainment or leisure than to get to work.
In an end-of-year message from December, Rio Metro director Robert Gonzalez wrote ridership increased steadily in 2023, reaching numbers that hadn't been seen since pre-pandemic — up to a high of 2,800 daily.
"We still have a ways to go," Meyers said. "We live in a state that doesn't really see a lot of congestion, and our population is not as robust as some other states."
Environmental concerns are one reason people might take the train, Meyers said. But she also cited increased safety compared to driving and the appeal of not having to fight for limited parking spaces in a historic state capital.
Meyers said she's not aware of any specific goals to increase ridership or reduce per-passenger emissions in other ways, although she said getting more people on the train is likely the most effective way to reduce pollution. When the train first started running in 2006, there were experiments with biodiesel, but Meyers said it didn't work well with the engines and was ultimately abandoned.
To attract more people to the train, Rio Metro has offered incentives like free fares for youth under 17 and events like Shakespeare on the Rail. Some work and some don't, Meyers said.
"It's kind of a shell game," Meyers said. "We're always playing to do different things to attract people to get on the train."
