Sierra Club flunks LV on mass transit issues

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 | 8:46 a.m.

The Sierra Club's top 15 overall grades for clean-air transportation choices:

Failing Grades: Cities including Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Phoenix and 29 others.

The environmental group's analysis is part of an annual report that focuses on the three intertwined subjects. The group this year gave letter grades to the region.

Las Vegas Valley received a C for the amount of smog produced by vehicles per person and an F for the amount spent on public transportation versus highways and roads. The overall grade for the region was a D, Sierra Club sprawl campaign coordinator Melody Flowers said.

About 50 cities were studied using 1998 data, Flowers said. Although Las Vegas' marks aren't good, they are better than about two-thirds of the other cities studied.

"Everyone in the nation is doing poorly," she said.

Jessica Hodge, a Sierra Club organizer, said the area needs to do a better job so that already serious air quality problems don't get worse.

"It's time to spend more money on alternative transportation," Hodge said. "Transportation choices are just critical for the health of the Las Vegas Valley."

For every $205 the area spends on highways, the region spends $74 on mass or alternative transit, she said.

The region is already under scrutiny by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for violating health standards for fine dust and carbon monoxide in the air. Local air quality officials warn that the region could also soon join the list of cities in violation for ozone in the air.

Ozone, largely a product of gas engines such as those in cars, can seriously affect human health, Hodge said, especially for older or already sick people.

The club annually chastises the region for encouraging housing development sprawling into once undeveloped desert, a process the group says is encouraged by highway construction. The combined effect of more people driving longer distances to work over the new roads adds to air pollution throughout the region, it argues.

The Sierra Club's best overall mark went to the New York City region, which got an overall B+ score, thanks largely to the amount spent on public transit versus highways.

But local transportation planners said comparing a young, rapidly growing area such as Las Vegas with a city such as New York isn't fair. The East Coast metropolis has had a couple of hundred years to develop a large mass transit system, they said.

"We're growing at a much faster pace," said Ingrid Reisman, communications manager for the Regional Transportation Commission. The commission oversees regional transportation policy and funding.

"We are also growing out to areas of the valley that don't yet have roadways," Reisman said, explaining why the funding priorities may seem skewed toward more highway construction in comparison to other cities. "New York City and Las Vegas are totally different ballgames."

But the RTC and the region generally are putting more money into alternatives to the cars and highways that, Reisman agreed, contribute to air pollution problems.

"We need to provide roadways," she said, "but we need to provide other options. We need a balanced approach to road construction and alternative transportation."

Among the goals of the RTC are to build a monorail along the Strip, provide more buses and bus routes through the valley and support more car pooling, bicycling, hiking and other transit alternatives.

Reisman said the RTC will unveil a "Metropolitan Area Express" demonstration project next June that will link downtown Las Vegas to North Las Vegas.

"Traffic congestion is worsening. That's not news to us," Reisman said. "We recognize that there are a lot of things we still need to do in Las Vegas. We want to make it better than it is now."

One bright note for both the RTC and the Sierra Club is the prospect of more spending on rail projects. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's majorityy whip, is backing more than $20 billion for mass transit and rail transportation nationally.

Amtrak also is proposing to build new rails to once again link Las Vegas and Los Angeles with passenger train service.

The measures are supported by the RTC and the Sierra Club.

"You have been making some investments in public transportation, and that is terrific," Flowers said. "But you have a long way to go.

"There needs to be a better coordination between land use and transportation planning, so that they don't have to build new roads," she said. "Our message here is that sprawl and new highways are not inevitable."