Ah, springtime! and the politics of Albuquerque growth. Just when one sop to developers has been momentarily pruned back (see Lora Lucero’s TIDDs article - in Riogrande Sierran), another sprouts up to keep us busy. Pursuant to a $450,000 federal earmark that materialized last year, the Mid-Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has allocated almost $1 million to the “environmental documentation and preliminary engineering phases” of a 'Northwest Loop Road' through undeveloped land connecting U.S. 550 west of Bernalillo to I-40 west of Albuquerque, near Rio Puerco (see map). In a moment of candor, the NEPA scoping notice described it as a "beltway for the expanding Albuquerque/ Rio Rancho metropolitan area." That’s right, an admitted "sprawl-inducer": the very type of project that environmental and community activists have historically challenged successfully when planning authorities somehow “fail to consider adequately” the destructive social, economic and environmental effects of diverting scarce resources from urban centers to subsidize highimpact, low-density development entailing drastic increases in regional vehicle miles traveled (VMT). If this proposal weren't so obviously serving reckless development interests, we might dub it, with a nod to Alaska, our own Road to Nowhere.

The Central Group has submitted comments in both the NEPA scoping and the MPO planning processes, pointing out that Albuquerque has almost the lowest density of any of the top 100 urban areas nationwide, it ranks in the upper half for vehicle miles traveled, and the city’s population growth could (and should) be entirely accommodated within the existing metropolitan framework. Federal regulations even specify that transportation planning should protect the environment and promote energy conservation and consistency with "local planned growth." The City and County Comprehensive Plan's Goals include strengthening "concentrations of moderate and high-density mixed land use and social/economic activities which reduce urban sprawl, auto travel needs, and service costs." But these obvious contradictions don’t of themselves stop "the process" when publicly financed windfalls for developers beckon. It takes our diligent efforts.

...read our comments—along with the MPO’s response.... The Central Group will also post updates on the NEPA and MPO processes as they develop. Stay tuned!

--Patrick Redmond, May/June Riogrande Sierran newsletter.

Also, read the interesting Rocky Mountain Riparian Digest. (Large, 12 MB, 24 page, pdf document.)