RTC plans to cut six bus routes

Thursday, Nov. 7, 2002 | 11:21 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission plans to cut six public bus routes despite voters approving a ballot question that proposes to generate $2.7 billion in local funding for transportation projects over the next 25 years.

RTC officials say Question 10, the fair share funding initiative, was an advisory question that still needs to be funded by the Legislature. Until that happens, they say they have to stay within the constraints of their current budget.

"We have yet to see these revenues -- the funding is not yet guaranteed," said Ingrid Reisman, spokeswoman for the RTC. "When the Legislature provides the funding we will be able to increase bus services."

That could take up to a year, RTC officials say, noting that additional transportation services would be funded by a quarter-cent sales tax increase, a boost in the development tax, a portion of existing property taxes and an additional once-cent tax on jet fuel.

Reisman said it is not known whether the increased funding would mean restoring the six Citizens Area Transit bus routes that are proposed to be cut or if a different configuration similar to those routes will be implemented.

The routes on the chopping block are Oakey Boulevard (Route 205), Craig Road (219), the Strip Express (302); the Rancho Drive Red Line (802), the Las Vegas Boulevard Blue Line (801) and the Summerlin Circulator (404).

The RTC is expected to decide at a public hearing on Dec. 12 whether to ax the routes that Reisman says are producing low revenues for the bus company.

There will be five three-hour public meetings on the proposed cuts before then: at 4 p.m. Nov. 14 at Community College of Southern Nevada Charleston Campus; at 4 p.m. Nov. 18 at the Clark County Library on Flamingo Road; at 10 a.m. Nov. 23 at the Sahara Library; at 4 p.m. Dec. 3 at CCSN Cheyenne Campus; and at 4 p.m. Dec. 5 at the RTC offices, 600 S. Grand Central Parkway.

Question 10, which received 53 percent approval from voters on Tuesday, also will allow Southern Nevada to obtain billions of dollars in federal funding, the RTC said.