Winning name announced for futuristic transit system

Angela Soo

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 11:28 a.m.

Transportation officials announced the winning name for a new futuristic transit system on Thursday that would help mitigate air quality problems.

The MAX, or Metropolitan Area Express, not to be confused with the monorail project, is a different system that will offer light-rail type capabilities but still run with current transit schedules.

The RTC considered more than 3,000 names that were submitted for a contest, awarding $500 to the person with the winning entry. Casey Hill, a marketing and design student at UNLV, won the contest.

Each vehicle will use an environmentally friendly diesel-electric engine and come equipped with an optical guidance system. The guidance system will follow a painted strip on the sidewalk.

"It will make it easier for wheelchair patrons to enter the vehicle and significantly reduce how a long a vehicle waits at a stop," Lee Gibson, assistant general manager of transit for the RTC, said.

The vehicle will also have four doors, as opposed to three in the regular transit buses, and is expected to have a running life of 22 years. Regular transit buses have a life expectancy of 12 years. A MAX vehicle also carries twice as many passengers.

"Bus fares will remain the same and everything will be transferable and as user friendly as possible," Ingrid Reisman, RTC spokeswoman, said.

Each vehicle costs $1 million and the RTC hopes to have 10 vehicles running by fall 2003.

The new express system is to run along the Las Vegas Boulevard North Corridor from Bruce Street to Craig Road, which handles more than 8,000 bus riders per day, and is the third-busiest in the Citizens Area Transit bus system. The RTC hopes to expand the route but does not plan on replacing all CAT buses.