The City Manager wants to connect Bernalillo, NM (3rd-oldest town in the U.S., and trailer park capital of the universe) with Rio Rancho, NM (exploding subdivisions from hell, characterless sheet-rock capital of the universe, but without trailers) with a Maglev rail line. I wonder if this is connected with Rio Rancho Mayor Jim Owen's megalomaniacal idea to push his exploding subdivisions all the way to Laguna Pueblo?
I remind these low-budget fantasists that Sacramento had to give up computer-driven light rail trains, because they kept crashing into cars and drunks and cows and any number of other inconvenient objects, on a routine basis:
Swindle believes it could happen with the urban maglev, a high-speed train that floats above its track on a magnetic field, transporting passengers above the metropolitan area without traffic congestion, expensive rail lines or even a driver.
It's a real technology, already carrying passengers in Germany and Japan. In the United States, maglev exists on test tracks in San Diego and Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo.
The stumbling block is the price. At an estimated $20 million per mile, Swindle's idea would cost $100 million.
But with support from neighboring Rio Rancho, Swindle hopes to find investors to help build a five-mile maglev system connecting the Bernalillo rail stop for the state's Rail Runner commuter train to Rio Rancho's downtown, which is under construction.
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