Rail project gaining support

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 9:28 a.m.

A proposed monorail extension from the Strip to downtown Las Vegas appears to be gaining public acceptance, contractors and Regional Transportation Commission officials said Thursday.

They pointed to just a handful of people who attended an evening meeting to discuss the environmental impact of the $439 million extension, which would be added to the monorail now under construction.

"The controversy has fundamentally died down," said Samuel Tso, area manager with Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, a contractor on the environmental impact assessment now under public review.

He said unlike many environmental assessments in the West, the one for the monorail didn't involve protected animals.

A few buildings that could qualify for federal "historic" status along the proposed corridor might be affected, Tso said. That means that the full environmental impact statement will have to determine how much the monorail extension will affect those properties and what, if anything, could be done to mitigate the impact.

The properties are the Victory Hotel, the Apache Motel and Morgan Pest Control along Main Street, Tso said.

According to the draft environmental impact statement from the RTC, the principal negative impacts of the new monorail will come from the construction process. The positive long-term impacts include taking thousands of cars off the streets, with the associated pollution benefits, by providing 14 million annual trips on the electrically powered train.

A few people at the Thursday evening meeting expressed reservations about the extension.

"The one part I don't support is the part that's going on Riviera Drive," said Zoe Brown, who lives at the intersection of Riviera and Paradise Road. "The effect on privacy and security would, I think, be great because of the masses of people."

She said the project would be better if it ran only on the Strip, rather than a mile away on Paradise Road.

Jane Feldman, an activist for the local arm of the Sierra Club, said she doesn't oppose the monorail, but hopes it is the seed for a much larger public transit system.

She said moving tourists along the Strip and downtown is fine, but the RTC's mass transit plans need to be more aggressive and move out to residential communities.

The new section of the monorail, which would run from Sahara Avenue to Fremont Street, would be funded with federal money. The monorail now under construction from MGM to Sahara Avenue, is funded with $650 million in private bonds issued by casinos along the Strip and is scheduled to open late in 2004.

By 2006, visitors and residents will be able to board the monorail at the MGM and ride it all the way downtown -- a "seamless" trip.

RTC officials say no local tax money will be used to build either part of the monorail."