Nevada stingy on air quality spending

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

In the last decade Nevada was one of the worst states in the nation in spending federal dollars for air quality and pedestrian safety, according to a study released today by a national transportation and transit group.

But the Surface Transportation Policy Project also ranked Nevada as the second-best state in the nation in spending on road repairs, with $141,000 spent per mile of bad roads.

About 43 percent of Nevada's roads are not in good condition, the study said, but that is much better than the national average of 70 percent.

"Air quality spending could be better," Linda Bailey, an analyst with the nonprofit organization, said. "It looks like Nevada has been doing very well with road conditions. But on pedestrian and bicycle safety, that's largely a function of how roads are designed."

That means spending local, state and federal funds to make roads safe for those who are not in automobiles, she said.

Her organization determined that Nevada spent only about 58 percent of federal "congestion mitigation and air quality" funds available between 1992 and 2001 -- the second-worst rate nationally. That left more than $32 million left unspent.

And the study also notes that Nevada was eighth-worst in the nation in 2000 and 2001 for pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities, with an average of 2.45 deaths per 100,000 residents.

Bailey said the intersection of the two issues indicates Nevada can do a better job of spending on alternative transportation and mass transit to clean up the air, and could also do a better job of making the streets safer for people who choose to get around by walking or bicycling.

State and local officials said the study is accurate but fails to account for improvements in the rate of spending for the federal air quality funds. They also predicted improvements in pedestrian safety based on local and state commitments.

Kent Cooper, Nevada Department of Transportation assistant director for planning, said more than 90 percent of the air quality funding is now used by the state.

The state lagged in the 1990s because air quality programs were not up and running, and federal rules mandated that those programs be in place before the money could come in, he said.

"It took two to three years to get them up and running," he said. "Within a year or two, you are going to see a full expenditure of those CMAQ funds."

Ingrid Reisman, spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, said that as of now, all federal funds for congestion mitigation and air quality are being spent.

Unfortunately for cyclists and walkers, most of that federal money will not go toward pedestrian-safety improvements but toward the control of Las Vegas' toughest air quality problem, fine dust. The funds have been used to help pave hundreds of miles of roadway in Clark County, part of a commitment the area has made to the dust control.

But Charity Fechter, RTC planning manager, said funds are going to traffic and pedestrian safety and mass transit needs.

"There are enough strings attached to it that it doesn't fit every project," Fechter said. "We have been slow spending it. Could we do better? Yes.

"But we've been trying to spend this stuff as aggressively as possible."

Fechter said she believes there is a connection between air quality improvements and getting people out of their cars.

Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership, an agency that works from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agreed. She said that Nevada will likely fare even worse in pedestrian fatalities for 2002 than it has in the past.

She said air quality and safe streets "are absolutely connected."

"We need to get people out of their cars and into alternative modes of transportation," Breen said. "Right now it's scary for people.

"People walk only out of necessity, not to save the environment or to save their own health."

For more information about the Surface Transportation Policy Project or its latest reports go to its website at www.transact.org/.