RTC approves $2 billion transit plan

Jeff Schweers

Friday, Jan. 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

What's a $2 billion transportation plan for the future without a monorail?

The Regional Transportation Commission has approved a resort corridor master plan to take it to the year 2020, the centerpiece of which is a $1.5 billion monorail system linking downtown Las Vegas to McCarran International Airport.

"The master plan is critical to maintain the economic viability and growth of our community," Parsons Brinckerhoff consultant Tom Jenkins told the RTC Thursday before it unanimously approved the plan.

Without the plan, Clark County's air quality can only get worse, planners said, jeopardizing federal highway and airport funds and cutting off sewer growth. In other words, bringing the valley's growth to a halt.

Las Vegas has the fifth-worst air in the country, surpassing even Denver, which is notorious for its unhealthy air. If things don't improve, the Environmental Protection Agency could reclassify Las Vegas from a nonattainment area to "serious," officials said.

The RTC hopes to offer the master resort corridor plan to the federal government as a "good-faith effort regarding air quality," Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, an RTC board member, said Thursday.

The resort corridor is seen as the heart of the county's transportation system, its chronically blocked arteries causing circulation problems throughout the valley's roadway grid.

While the resort corridor accounts for less than 10 percent of the valley's land area and 10 percent of the county's population, it contains more than 50 percent of the jobs, Jenkins said.

Building a public monorail is crucial to getting people out of their cars, Jenkins said, especially since the number of vehicle trips per day is expected to jump from 1.8 million today to 7.3 million 20 years from now.

"It seems to me to be a unique demand for focusing on a real mass transit resolution," board member and Las Vegas Councilman Matt Callister said.

Boulder City Councilwoman Iris Bletsch reminded the board that the plan has to meet the needs of other communities as well.

"We can create jobs, but if people can't get to their jobs, that's going to be a problem," Bletsch said.

The $1.5 billion monorail system approved conceptually Thursday consists of a 15-mile loop with 27 stations running up either side of the Strip to downtown Fremont Street, with future extensions to the airport, Cashman Field and the Las Vegas Convention Center. A separate study recommends extending the monorail northwest along the U.S. 95 corridor.

The system should be built to carry up to 20,000 passengers an hour, Jenkins said, meet all fire and safety standards and be fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Because 90 percent of Clark County lives outside the resort corridor, the master plan includes increasing the current bus fleet from 190 to 500 buses, a $430 million cost that would raise the annual operating costs of mass transit from $50 million to $200 million.

Jenkins said ridership targets federal air quality standards, with a goal to get 15 percent of the resort area trips, and 8 percent of the trips valleywide.

RTC Director Kurt Weinrich said approval of the conceptual plan helps maintain eligibility for highly competitive federal highway funding reauthorization. Fifty other communities are competing for limited funds, Weinrich told the board, and the communities that have achieved consensus on a rail system will have the best shot at getting that money.

"The issue is not only quality of life for this community, but to get approval for federal funds for the airport and sewer expansion," said Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, chairman of the RTC board.

Hilton Hotels has set out to build its own 3.3-mile monorail connecting its properties on the east side of the Strip, while Mirage Resorts and Circus Circus have expressed a desire to link their properties with people-mover systems.

A financial plan for funding the monorail is expected to be presented to the steering committee next week.