Columnist Ken McCall: Forget the solo commute; be prepared for carpools, buses

Ken McCall

Monday, June 2, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

READING TRAFFIC STUDIES in this town can be really depressing.

I mean, we're going to spend $433 million just to try to keep our current delightful driving conditions from getting any worse.

My guess: We're dreaming.

The number of cars passing through many intersections -- especially along the Strip -- is getting close to the total capacity of the roadway. The same is true for the Northwest Corridor, as it's called in a rapidly proliferating library of studies.

The problem, as defined by the U.S. 95 Major Investment Study, is that commuter traffic from the northwest to downtown Las Vegas and the Strip is projected to increase by 75 percent in the next 17 years. Which means it'll more than double the way things usually go around here.

So it sounds like anybody who lives out there had better buy a helicopter or keep a sleeping bag in their office. You're not going to be able to get back and forth -- unless the state Department of Transportation hires Siegfried and Roy.

OK, so maybe magic and white tigers aren't the answer. The best we can hope is that almost a half-billion bucks will make a dent.

But you can just put any thoughts of improvement out of your mind.

Says Roger Patton, project manager for the U.S. 95 study process: "It's almost impossible to make it any better, because you couldn't build it fast enough."

Besides, you couldn't find enough money.

So we're going to widen U.S. 95 and build new arterial connectors such as the Martin Luther King-Industrial Way project and widen seven arterial streets and expand bus service and try something called transportation demand management (TDM).

Basically, TDM is a strategy to shame and cajole us commuters out of what traffic people call single-occupancy vehicles. Prepare to hear a lot more about carpools and buses.

These things usually sound like good and responsible things to do -- as long as we, personally, don't have to do them.

In reality, these things will only take off when it actually makes sense -- in time and money and convenience -- not to drive alone in our own rolling, stereo-equipped castles.

Even though transit boosters brag that our bus system is the fastest growing in the country, it still only accounts for about 1.4 percent of all trips in the Las Vegas Valley.

But as our roads reach capacity -- that is, as our castles roll more and more slowly -- buses and carpools will make more and more sense. Especially when many of those new freeway lanes we'll be building will be off limits to us solo commuters.

Some of the restricted lanes aren't going to wait for a new freeway, either.

Bus-only lanes will be going in this summer on Sahara Avenue. The lanes will take up what are now "breakdown lanes" along the curb on the east-west arterial, says RTC Director Kurt Weinrich. Sahara will have to be restriped to expand those narrow lanes slightly.

You'll also see some right-turn-only signs changed to read: "Right turn must turn right -- except buses."

The bus-only lanes will be prepared for the new express bus service from Rainbow Boulevard to the Strip, Weinrich says, which will begin as soon as new buses are delivered. The commute from one end to the other is expected to take about 20 minutes in rush-hour traffic.

The express buses, which will carry about 60, are scheduled to run every half-hour.

Sixty people every half-hour doesn't amount to much in your average Las Vegas rush hour, but Weinrich says he has to start somewhere.

"Unfortunately," he says, "we don't have unlimited resources."

We can relate.

* If you happened to be out driving in the northwest late Thursday morning, that group of people sweltering alongside the Cheyenne Avenue off-ramp on northbound U.S. 95 was a meeting-for-the-media of Department of Transportation Director Tom Stevens and County Commissioner Lance Malone.

The powers that be want everyone to know that the cavalry is galloping to the rescue of everyone caught in the Cheyenne off-ramp traffic ambush.

The off-ramp will be restriped in the coming months to two left-turn lanes as part of a larger project to help temporarily ease traffic along the freeway.

Malone, a traffic cop, and Stevens sit next to each other on the RTC, and the NDOT chief says the new commissioner is "not shy about telling me about various projects around town."

Other parts of the project include building auxiliary lanes for easier merging along much of the freeway and restriping the Summerlin Parkway off-ramp to two lanes.

Stevens couldn't say exactly when the project will be finished, but the contractor has 100 business days, beginning June 23, to get it all done.

That means we'll probably see relief in the early fall.

Until then, try to stay cool -- or at least patient. And for summer reading, don't pick up the U.S. 95 Major Investment Study.