Since Gov. Bill Richardson has still not agreed to debate Republican challenger John Dendahl, I’m continuing this week to publish articles written by Dendahl on various issues. Here’s a column published Dec. 16, 2005 in the Albuquerque Journal about the spaceport and commuter rail, taken directly from Dendahl’s Web site:
Spaceport Is Richardson’s Latest Boondoggle
By John Dendahl
“Another day, another road-to-higher-office boondoggle at New Mexicans’ expense. Now Gov. Bill Richardson is proposing to dump $100 million or so into a ‘commercial spaceport.’
“No wonder this man has a perpetual grin on his face. Despite the intensity with which he seems to despise it, the oil and gas industry is pumping money a politician could only dream of into pockets Richardson controls as if they were his own!
“Big taxpayer bucks are going into movies and speculative corporate investments, all raising Richardson’s profile among groups from which he raises campaign funds.
“Then there’s what Richardson shamelessly calls ‘my commuter railroad.’ Some legislators are feigning great surprise — now that equipment and several hundred miles of track have been bought — that its costs will run hundreds of millions more than they were told at the get-go. Just as with yet another boondoggle, pre-kindergarten, they have been led to the slaughter with estimates that any attentive citizen knew were scandalously low.
“On Nov. 9, my wife and I attended a dog-and-pony show on the commuter railroad held in the Santa Fe suburb of El Dorado. Richardson’s Secretary of Transportation Rhonda Faught spoke briefly, then turned the program over to Pat Oliver-Wright, planner director in the transportation department’s special studies section. Their remarks included a list of options that had been studied to meet transportation needs in the Belen-to-Santa Fe corridor projected over the coming decades.
“Commuter rail is the subject of dozens of studies easily available on the Internet that show it to be a loser on numerous grounds, especially financial and quality of life. So I asked about an option that seemed conspicuously absent from the list of those studied, toll lanes on highways. Oliver-Wright said this option had not been studied.
“Richardson’s enthusiasm for a high-profile railroad project leads one to wonder whether any studies performed weren’t, in fact, designed to lead to rail. Period. Just three months ago, the Reason Foundation released a report recounting many years of study and experience with highway lanes that are reserved for some combination of vans, busses and toll-paying passenger vehicles. While this Reason report isn’t oriented to playing off rail against rubber-tire transportation, one cannot avoid coming away from it with the conclusion that Gov. Richardson’s Commuter Railroad is likely a bad choice made in haste.
“Richardson is frequently lauded by his editorial supporters for getting things done quickly. But haste makes waste. His administration now admits the commuter railroad cost is up around $400 million. That continues to grow, and many fear with good cause that ridership won’t amount to the proverbial hill of beans.
“Stand by for a future time when this will be seen as a billion dollar boondoggle.”
Since Gov. Bill Richardson has still not agreed to debate Republican challenger John Dendahl, I’m continuing this week to publish articles written by Dendahl on various issues. Here’s a column published Dec. 16, 2005 in the Albuquerque Journal about the spaceport and commuter rail, taken directly from Dendahl’s Web site: 
“Another day, another road-to-higher-office boondoggle at New Mexicans’ expense. Now Gov. Bill Richardson is proposing to dump $100 million or so into a ‘commercial spaceport.’