Andrew Oxford
Cars jockey to pick up arriving passengers amid construction at the airport terminal.
No one, it seems, is above getting stranded at the Santa Fe Regional Airport.
“I almost got stuck out there,” says city Public Works Director Regina Wheeler.
The official who oversees the airport as well as the city’s public transportation network tells SFR she booked an Uber before flying back into Santa Fe on a recent trip, but discovered the ride had been canceled when she landed.
So, she had to catch a ride with another traveler.
With few options for passengers flying into Santa Fe to make their way to destinations around town, city officials say a black market of sorts has even opened up, with unlicensed taxis operating from the airport.
James Harris, the city’s new airport director, says he began fielding concerns as soon as he arrived in November, not only about the lack of options, but also about exorbitant rates some drivers were offering passengers who didn’t want to be left behind about 14 miles from downtown.
“When I got here, we were getting complaints about no transportation from the airport to town. Then, one person complained she paid $80 to a guy who provided a ride to town,” Harris tells SFR.
City officials called the Public Regulation Commission, which controls commercial transportation services such as taxis and limousines. A spokesman for the commission says state regulators went to the airport and spoke with several drivers about the laws on providing rides for hire. The commission didn’t take any enforcement action, but Harris says the presence from regulators helped. Unlicensed taxis can be easy to spot: Licensed vehicles for hire will have a PRC number emblazoned on the side.
City officials say efforts to contract with private operators or encourage services to set up a service have fallen flat.
But that still doesn’t answer the question: How is anyone supposed to get from the airport to their home or wherever they’re staying in town?
Some hotels run their own shuttle services.
Residents and travelers headed to other lodging or points beyond the city have fewer options.
“We get Uber and Lyft but the demand around the city is very high. We rarely see Uber out here,” says Harris.
That can leave fliers waiting on a very small curbside amid the dust of a terminal expansion project that won’t be complete until the end of the year, following delays. While some airports are far from the cities they serve and many Santa Fe residents head to Albuquerque for flights, cities often bridge the gap with some form of transit.
The city set aside $180,000 earlier this year, in part to pay for transportation from the airport using tourism funds. Harris says the prices that potential contractors offered far exceeded that amount, however.
Meanwhile, the city’s own transit system is not necessarily on board with extending a route to the airport.
Thomas Martinez, director of operations and maintenance for Santa Fe Trails, told councilors during a recent budget hearing that other routes are too far away to merit a stop at the airport. Martinez added that it wouldn’t necessarily be feasible for the transit agency to align the bus schedule with the arrival time of the nine flights that serve the airport each day.
Two flights—one from Dallas and one from Denver—arrive around 10 pm on weeknights, for example. But the nearest bus route—the #24—stops regular service a little after 8 pm. On-demand service along that route only continues until 9:30 pm, though for the last week the route has been on-demand all day due to construction near Country Club Road.
But bus service to the airport was one of the most popular requests of current city bus riders surveyed as part of a report commissioned by the city and provided to councilors more than a year ago.
Moreover, some transit officials are interested in regular bus service to the airport.
A new long-range plan from the North Central Regional Transit District calls for collaborating with the city to provide transportation options to the airport. That could complement the district’s broader plan to connect Santa Fe, Española and Taos with a bus rapid transit system that would run at least once an hour.
The new airport director says he’s also interested in getting more transportation options to the airport.
For starters, Harris says he is aiming to get the city to assign an employee to the airport who can run a shuttle service.
