August 9, 2016

Donald R. Koski, Director
Planning & Program Development
U.S. Department of Transportation

Federal Transit Administration - Region VI

Fritz Lanthan Federal Building
819 Taylor Street, Suite 14A02
Fort Worth, TX 76102

Re: Albuquerque Rapid Transit Project

Dear Mr. Koski:

I am a homeowner who supports a good rapid transit plan for Albuquerque.  At first, like many I was in favor of the city’s plan based on what we knew of the changes for Central Ave.   But many of us became alarmed when we found out the details of this plan for what it would mean for our neighborhood stability, safety and health.

I have lived in the Albuquerque area for 40 years and at my present location on the corner of Coal and Richmond SE for 15 as a homeowner.  As far as I know from contacts with other homeowners none of us were informed of the disastrous impact the mayor’s ART plan would have on us along Lead and Coal and Zuni Avenues.  We only discovered the details of the plan when some of the business owners raised concerns about the situation on Central Avenue.

All of the discussion by the city has been about businesses along Central Avenue and nothing about the problems this plan will create for the communities and homeowners along Lead, Coal and Zuni also to some extent.

We who live near Lead/Coal/Zuni know the problems of the poorly designed twin one-way streets that run through some of the most dense and popular neighborhoods of Albuquerque’s east side.  No modern urban planner these days would build such a network of streets as cross these two corridors - but the current ART plan would increase the traffic here permanently by moving the displaced Central Avenue traffic over to our neighborhoods and streets.  We already have lots of vehicle crashes and deaths due to the poor intersection designs from the legacy of past poor planning.  

We already experience tons of diesel exhaust which pollutes our bedrooms from trucks of all sizes using Lead/Coal/Zuni now.  In my rooms I have to regurarly clean the ceiling fan blades often to get all the soot and grease off them from the passing vehicles.  I see often semi-rig size commercial trucks zoom by my house probably for short cuts and it will only get worse if more Central traffic is moved here.  

Day and night we suffer here from all the vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles) that have removed their standard mufflers and have put on racing type loud devices (supposedly for performance enhancement).  We see these vehicles speed by sometimes drag racing, sometimes trying to beat the red lights, sometimes groups of 20-25 motorcycles racing, and always the noise is unbearable.  We cannot eat in our kitchen or sit and study with the kids sometimes until all these vehicles pass by.  This will only get worse for us all along these routes if half of the traffic on Central is diverted here by our home.

These negative environmental impacts will cause a loss of value to our already distressed homes and will probably lead to an out migration of the types of families we want to attract to our community.  It will be a great asset to the realestate developers as they start flipping homes to speculators who will turn more of them into absentee landlord rentals.  We have seen this problem increase over the years as more and more traffic picks up on our streets, both the east/west and north/south streets.

We did not know this traffic detail of permanently moving Central Ave. traffic over to our community streets when the plan first rolled out because it was left out of discussion probably due to the immense environmental problems it will create for thousands of homeowners and the neighborhoods along Lead/Coal/Zuni.  I do not think this problem was brought to your attention when the plan sent to your office for a categorical exclusion.  There is literally a local rebellion growing as more and more homeowners become aware of what is in store for us if this project goes forward.

I urge you to suspend the Categorical Exclusion granted by the FTA for this project and help us get a really good rapid transit system for Albuquerque.

Sincerely,