RTC studies light rail from south Strip to Green Valley

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002 | 11:11 a.m.

Backers of commuter railroads for the Las Vegas region have had a rough couple of years.

A hoped-for restart of Amtrak service between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is in limbo while the fate of the federally subsidized Amtrak system is debated in Congress. A high-tech "magnetic levitation" train proposed between Las Vegas and Barstow, Calif., has received about $1.2 million for environmental studies, but is far short of the billions that would be needed to build the line.

But there could soon be a far simpler and cheaper alternative moving people around the Las Vegas Valley.

The Regional Transportation Commission is exploring building a 10-mile, $60 million light-rail commuter system between downtown Henderson and the South Strip Transfer Facility, a connector to Strip buses just south of McCarran International Airport.

That's cheaper than building a new super-arterial such as the Desert Inn overpass, transportation planners say, and the price tag would include right-of-way acquisition. The light rail could be built for about $6 million per mile, planners say.

In comparison, the monorail system adjacent to the Strip currently under construction costs more than $100 million per mile.

The light rail system's cost to the local taxpayer could be even less.

"We will not do this without the federal government paying the majority of the cost," RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said. The Federal Transit Administration should provide about 80 percent of the funding, he added.

One reason for the relatively low cost is that most of the right-of-way already exists -- the plan would be to use existing Union Pacific Railroad lines for the light rail system.

Snow said his agency will probably apply for federal funding next year to begin environmental and engineering studies. He said creation of the light rail system probably depends on passage of Question 10 on this year's November ballot. The referendum would recommend raising $2.6 billion over the next two decades, mostly from increased sales taxes.

That would supply the local seed money for the project, Snow said.

The trains themselves would run on low-pollution, low-noise engines, Snow said -- essentially diesel bus engines.

The light rail line, with 12 stops from Henderson to the South Strip, could be running in three to five years.

Snow credited the RTC board, made up of elected representatives from across Clark County, with coming up with the concept. He said the proposal could become a critical conduit for people in the largely residential areas of Henderson and Green Valley to travel to their jobs along the Strip.

"I suggested that Jacob look at this a couple of years ago," RTC board member and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said. "My feeling is that if we are ever to make the kind of impact with transit in Southern Nevada that we hope to make, we need to bring the transit to where the people are."

RTC officials and board members say this project will not be in competition with the monorail, which would run from the MGM Grand to Sahara Avenue. Planners hope to eventually extend the monorail to downtown Las Vegas.

Officials said bringing the two together would give local residents more transportation options, and likely get people out of their cars.

"This does nothing but help the monorail," Snow said.

"The monorail provides a wonderful option because it gets people off the street in the resort corridor," Gibson agreed. "But it is absolutely unrealistic to think we would have a monorail going into the neighborhoods, because the cost would be prohibitive. "

Snow said a light rail transportation option would appeal to people who are not likely to take the bus, the principal mass transit system in the Las Vegas Valley.

There is plenty of room along the Union Pacific lines to build stations and, where necessary, sidings for trains to leave the main lines open, officials said.

Union Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney said his company has not had an offer from local agencies but would consider one.

The company cooperates with regional transportation agencies in other areas to run commuter lines, he said.

In some cases the regional agencies buy the line outright, or they can lease the line from the railroad, Furtney said. The agencies and the railroad usually do not have a problem sharing the lines, he added.

Tom Skancke, a transportation funding consultant and lobbyist, is one of the local movers and shakers giving the concept an emphatic thumbs-up.

"The best thing about light rail is that the systems move a lot more people than cars," he said.

The proposal on the table trumps other concepts because of the area's unique characteristics, Skancke said. Underground lines -- the traditional subways and tunnels used in New York, for example -- are impossible to build in the Las Vegas region because of the soil type, he said.

And using the existing rights-of-way means that whole neighborhoods would not have to be disrupted as they have in other cities.

"Since we can't go underground, it is the best way for us to move commuter traffic as well as tourist traffic," Skancke said.

Snow said the concept has become viable due to the region's growth.

"There wasn't any Green Valley 15 years ago," but now the region is home to tens of thousands of residents, many of them potential commuters on a new transit system, Snow said.

The railroad service that the RTC would like to see would ultimately grow beyond the 10 miles of track in the concept plan. Ultimately, a light-rail system would connect to a downtown Las Vegas transfer facility, hooking up with the RTC's Metropolitan Express scheduled to begin operating next year, and with existing bus routes.

The Union Pacific tracks extend beyond downtown to the northeast part of the valley, and Snow said that could allow the corridor to eventually have a light-rail system that begins in Henderson and loops through downtown Las Vegas and North Las Vegas to Nellis Air Force Base.