[Neighbors] ART, my latest letter to the Journal, which they will not print

[Anderson Robert via Neighbors_nobhill-nm]

First, as a long time 40 year resident of the city with a good amount of time in the Nob Hill area and a supporter of increasing public transit I am opposed to the present ART plan.   I was for the proposed Albuquerque Rapid Transit plan until I looked into the details.  I think others need to think about too.  Here are a few of my thoughts on it.

First, it is not really a rapid increase in transit time over the present system.  We need really rapid transit across town, not this incremental tinkering at such high cost for a narrow interest group.  It is really false advertising to say it is rapid transit.  It does nothing to increase the north/south transit needs of the city or real cross town to the far sides.

Second, it is intended to mainly serve the elite class of the city, the STEM folks along the new Silicon Valley zone being dreamed of along Central Ave.  It is not intended to help the masses of regular people who could use a real ART system.  Again false advertising or messaging.  You can see this by looking for all the missing stops in the east end that would serve the low income community and look at all the stops in the high class areas.  STEM is not the answer to our problems anyway.

Third, it will not reduce the number of vehicles on the streets and is thus falsely leading us to believe it will improve the air and environment.  The vehicles displaced from Central with the bottleneck of lane reductions will just be moved to the parallel streets of Lead/Coal and Zuni.  In these areas already impacted by raceway traffic and truck and auto pollution, much of it diesel, will just get worse.  Families will probably want to move out for their children's sake in air quality and danger on the streets from increases in traffic accidents on the feeder streets.

Fourth, the construction will remove, not add more trees to the landscape for needed shade.  The planners want us to go along with the myth of moving the center island trees to the sidewalk areas is an improvement, but if that was the case why not just add the trees there anyway and leave the center island as it is

Fifth, and the most over looked is the effect on the existing neighborhoods along Lead/Coal/Zuni corridor.  All the messaging till now has been what about the small businesses, will it hurt of help them. A good concern.  As near as I can tell there has been no environmental impact statement for the negative impact ART assessing the impact on our stable community neighborhoods who will be impacted by the PERMANENT increase in traffic in neighborhoods with the raceway Lead/Coal/Zuni corridor tearing apart our neighborhoods.  This alone should halt the present ART plan as it is going to have a disastrous impact on thousands of families, not just a few businesses on Central.  Most people think the shift in traffic is temporary but it is permanent.

Sixth, most likely all the costs of the cable, phone, electric, water, sewer lines that will have to be moved along the route will be passed along eventually to the larger customer base of all the utility companies.  Everyone is going to be paying for this cost.  We homeowners, business and renters do not need this unnecessary burden.

Seventh, it is just obscene to be talking of spending what will be in the end several hundred million dollars on a make-work project when we are facing a $400 million cut back in medical care spending by the state for our most needy citizens.  I don't buy the fake argument that ART money is "free" and can only be spent for buses.  Are we not a society that cares about its total people and make plans to serve health care first over cars and busses?  That alone should put this project on its death bed until we better balance our priorities.