Public officials tout clean air progress with monorail

Tuesday, April 22, 2003 | 9 a.m.

Regional elected officials used a tour of the Las Vegas monorail and the unveiling of a new fuel for area buses to showcase the move toward cleaner, greener mass transit Monday.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., spoke at the two events. They joined elected leaders from Southern Nevada to welcome both the monorail, which made a quarter-mile test run, and the experimental fuel that will power 15 Citizens Area Transit buses.

The formal discussions at both events often turned into a forum for mutual admiration. Reid and Berkley complimented Clark County Commissioner and Regional Transportation Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury for working for two decades to get the $650 million, privately funded monorail on track.

"Bruce is part of local government. He has been kind of Mr. Transportation for Southern Nevada," Reid said.

And Berkley said the test runs made over the last couple of weeks indicate that the monorail, once derided by some critics as an expensive fantasy, will soon be a reality -- and Woodbury's contribution was critical "in moving this forward."

Woodbury and RTC General Manager Jacob Snow returned the compliment, saying that Reid and Berkley have been essential in securing funding and federal support for mass transit in Southern Nevada.

Local officials hope to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching funds to help pay to extend the monorail to downtown, then ultimately to McCarran International Airport.

Snow told the politicians and the media that the Federal Transit Administration has approved the environmental impact statement for the second phase of monorail construction to downtown.

Woodbury said he believes the day is coming when the monorail, a light-rail system to tie the south end of the Strip to Henderson, local "park-and-ride" centers and express buses will be seamlessly linked together.

"We're not there yet, but in a very few years we will be," he said.

Woodbury, fellow Commissioner Chip Maxfield, North Las Vegas Councilwoman Shari Buck, Boulder City Councilman Brian Nix and Mesquite Councilman Scott Smith -- all RTC board members -- were the local elected officials at the monorail tour.

Several of those officials and Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown, also an RTC board member, heard Reid and Berkley welcome cleaner burning fuel for the agency's CAT buses later Monday.

Reid told the small crowd that the buses have cut diesel smoke emissions by 40 to 50 percent under the experimental program on 15 buses in Las Vegas. The program began in January.

"The reason we do this is to clean the air," Reid said. "The work we've done with the monorail and this is really going to help." The buses run on a blend of ethanol and traditional diesel fuel.