Urban Planning for a Western Megapolitan Area

When I moved to Albuquerque some twenty plus years ago I was surprised no shocked by the total lack of public transportation at the time. Our city has grown in the last twenty years and yet it would appear to anyone looking that urban planning is not a strong point for this city. We build communities without schools, parks, roads, utilities or for that matter anything but houses. With the price of gasoline over $4 a gallon this has to change or we will all end up paying for it in the future. The one thing we have going for this city is that our Governor had the foresight to give us the railrunner which will enable the city to provide mass transit to large numbers of people in the future. We need to look at how best to get people around the city once they step off the railrunner. The oil companies have long had a strangle hold on the money for transportation and they are still demanding that money is spent on roads where a vehicle caring one person travels long distances using an oil based product. I wonder why they would not want mass transit...

The problem with this is that we are running out of time with this method of transportation and now we are being forced by high cost to look at other methods of transportation. Our city would do well to consider the future when planning how to best use taxpayers money to move large numbers of people from point A to point B. Buses may appear cheap now but when the price of oil based fuels continues to raise it will cost the city far more in the future. Light rail could be powered by wind or solar power in the future therefore saving the city and taxpayers large sums of money. Now would be a good time to look at how to run the lines so that the most number of people would have easy access to a mass transit system. The city already knows where most of the traffic flow is and where people are moving to and from with that information a planning group could project where best to place lines of transit so that more individuals could move more freely.

Another step in the planning process is to determine what to build around the railrunner line in the future so that space can best be utilized. Anyone who has every lived in a large city knows that space around a hub of mass transit is often used for businesses and further out is housing and large apartment communities. No one in their right mind wants to live too close to a rail system because of the noise and vibration made by the train. A planning group could look at zoning to make plans now to determine how best to rezone areas around the stations for the railrunner. This type of city zoning will upset a good number of individuals who own property in those areas but in the past it was the price that large cities paid for growth. Giving people information now so that they can plan for the future is the kindest thing city planning groups could do for those residents. We have already seen what type of reaction to expect from communities on the edge of the current city and it will only get worst in the future. Our center city will only grow in the future and we need to have residents understand what the results of that growth will lead to in the future. Giving them false hope is simply not a good approach. The future will play out very unpleasantly in front of news cameras if people are not made aware of what growth will bring in their neighborhoods.

The question remains will our city leaders have the backbone to enact any of these plans or will they simply defer it to future leaders. Will they plan now to save money in the future or will they allow taxpayers to foot the bill for their lack of foresight. Will they give fair warning to resident in the path of future development or will they bend to their will only to have future leaders remove them from the path of development in front of news cameras. Growth is most often a painfully event for large cities but with proper planning it can be handled in a humane manner. Without planning we face a very troubled future for our city. Either way the residents of Albuquerque will live in a megapolitan area in the future.