Officials say state needs transit funds

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002 | 10:08 a.m.

Southern Nevada is teetering on the brink of transportation collapse and is in desperate need of federal funding, local officials told the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Monday.

Elected policy makers and agency leaders told Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, that local governments are spending hundreds of millions to widen highways and provide mass transit while receiving little help from the federal government.

"We are in a transportation crisis," Regional Transportation Commission General Manager Jacob Snow said minutes after the meeting with Young. "The problem is it is only going to get worse."

The local group told Young the region is already plagued with traffic jams and air pollution. Funding for mass transit programs and expanded highways is critical if only to keep the problems from intensifying.

Young made no promises.

"I'd like to do every project that anyone asked me for," he said. The congressman said he is generally sympathetic to some of the region's top priorities. Among them:

Among the elected officials asking for federal funding were Gov. Kenny Guinn, Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jim Gibbons, state Sen. Jon Porter, Las Vegas City Councilman Larry Brown, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson and North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon.

Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker, county Public Works Director Marty Manning and Snow were among the agency officials who likewise pitched for more local funding.

The effort comes in advance of what will likely be a lengthy and contentious process in Washington to divide the federal transportation budget for the next half-decade.

The six-year federal Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century expires next fiscal year. About $218 billion was distributed under the plan.

Congress will have to pass a new multi-year transportation authorization after hearings that will likely continue over the next year.

The transportation funding comes from an infrastructure trust fund collected from gasoline taxes.

Snow, in his presentation to Young, said a huge part of the gas tax has been off-limits to Southern Nevada.

Because the region has not had rail service and limited mass transit options, much of that tax has been collected here and used to subsidize other areas' transit systems.

In 1998, Nevada contributed about $30.4 million to the mass transit fund but received only $10.5 million back, he said. Snow compared that to the District of Columbia, which contributed a spare $5.6 million but received $262.5 million back.

Young agreed that Western states, in general, do not receive a fair share of the mass transit infrastructure dollars from the federal government.

"The reality is that you're a donor state, and you're not getting your money back," he said.