RTC’s 3-year plan is ripped

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 10:44 a.m.

The Southern Nevada arm of the Sierra Club released a study Monday that is sharply critical of new three-year transportation plans developed by the regional road and transit agency.

The group, which hired consultants to look at the federally required 2002-2005 Transportation Improvement Program, said the Regional Transportation Commission failed to properly account for air pollution that would be caused by cars and trucks on local roads.

The Sierra Club's consultant, Smart Mobility of Norwich, Vt., said the RTC's analysis violated federal Environmental Protection Agency rules in calculating the pollution.

RTC Planning Manager Charity Fechter, however, said her agency's work was consistent with both Federal Highway Administration and EPA rules.

"I suspect we're actually erring on the side of caution," Fechter said. "The methodology we're using is accepted. ... The factors that we used are based on local knowledge of local conditions."

Sierra Club organizers asked the agency to rework its analysis in the 400-page planning document. The consultants' report lists a half-dozen problems with the three-year road plan.

"We want to help the RTC develop a plan that helps people get from point A to point B, but helps the Las Vegas basin's pollution problem at the same time," said Eric Wesselman, Sierra Club regional representative.

He said errors must be corrected because revised modeling could show that traffic flows through the Las Vegas Valley are at higher speeds than originally expected, thus burning more gas and producing more pollution.

"A lot of this is pretty technical, but some of this is basic math," Wesselman said. He cited one part of the three-year plan that apparently clocks free-flowing cars and trucks on interstate highways at 60 mph.

Fechter, however, said the environmentalists and their consultants are misinterpreting the RTC's methodology. The agency uses those speeds for illustration but calculates emissions based on higher traffic speeds and different traffic times, she said.

While defending the agency's analysis, Fechter said the RTC's work to gauge emissions from traffic is ongoing. The Sierra Club's criticism could be incorporated into future models, she said.

The RTC's modeling affects the region's conformity with federal air pollution standards. The region is under a federal mandate to clean up fine dust and carbon monoxide in the air. Lack of conformity with those standards could ultimately jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for the state and region annually.

The plan to bring the area into conformity with the federal standards depends on accurate information from the Transportation Improvement Program, Wesselman said.

He said failure to revise the pollution estimates could spell regulatory problems with the EPA. Ultimately, the Sierra Club could take legal or administrative action to change the modeling.

"Certainly, we have gone to court in other parts of the country over just this issue," Wesselman said.

However, the group hopes to avoid a long battle with the RTC.

"What we want to do is sit down with them and talk about this in more detail, come to some understanding (or) agreement on what's working and what isn't," Wesselman said.

The RTC will discuss the Transportation Improvement Program during its regular meeting Thursday morning at the Clark County Commission chambers. Sierra Club activists said they will attend and hope to get their concerns incorporated into the final three-year plan.

Leana Hildebrand, conservation organizer with the Southern Nevada arm of the Sierra Club, said her group's concerns go beyond just the three-year plan.

The environmental group, in the longer term, wants the local agency to put more money into mass transit and alternatives to car travel, such as building bicycle lanes on local streets and highways.

The group has not come out for or against a proposed $2.7 billion tax initiative, dubbed the "fair share" plan, to go before Clark County voters this fall. Hildebrand said environmentalists want to see a real commitment to alternative transportation.

"We want to make sure fair share is really fair," she said. "It it's going to be 80 percent for highways and 20 percent for transit, that's just unacceptable."

Fechter, however, said the RTC has very little flexibility when it comes to spending federal, state or local tax dollars on transportation. Most of that spending is locked in by legal formula.

She said if environmentalists want to see more spending on mass transit, they should support the tax initiative.