Among the many wacky proposals for rail transit in this country is a plan to run commuter trains some 50 miles between Las Cruces, New Mexico (population about 100,000) to El Paso, Texas (population around 700,000). Such a project, if it did anything at all, would be most likely to drain jobs from Las Cruces to El Paso. So it is surprising that the main proponent of the project is a New Mexico transit agency, the South Central Regional Transit District (SCRTD).
SCRTD hired a consultant to do a feasibility study that — surprise! — concluded the train was feasible. Of course, to reach this conclusion, the study had to make some heroic assumptions:
- That the federal government would be willing to put up a large share of the capital costs, which it doesn’t want to do.
- That the state government would also be willing to contribute to the capital costs, which it doesn’t want to do.
- That BNSF would be willing to host commuter trains on its rail line, which it doesn’t want to do.
- That surveys of people who say they would be happy to ride the train (without telling them about the fares) really mean anything.
- That someone will be willing to subsidize most of the $15 to $20 cost per trip, when anyone who already owns a car could drive the distance for well under half that amount.
