Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.
A system to move traffic more quickly through the valley could be stalled by Las Vegas over the fate of 11 union workers.
The state-of-the-art system proposed by the Regional Transportation Commission has support of local governments, but the city is trying to resolve the issue of moving employees to the new project.
"We're every bit as supportive as any other agency," Las Vegas Public Works Director Richard Goecke said. "That's not the issue. We have an issue with a certain group of employees."
The Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation -- dubbed, optimistically, FAST -- would coordinate traffic lights and tie traffic controls along arterial roads with highways. That, planners say, would ease the traffic by creating a regional system for controlling traffic flow.
Las Vegas has 11 traffic control engineers who, since 1984, have run the Las Vegas Area Computer System, which will be replaced by FAST. Under the plan those workers would become RTC employees.
The traffic engineers, who were not available for comment Tuesday, would have to change bosses and unions under the plan, and if they don't, the city would have to find other jobs for them.
"What that means is they'd go into the county union as county organized labor," Goecke said. "How well or unwell that works out is going to determine in those people's minds whether this is something they want to do."
The employees could stay with the city, Goecke said, but that means they will displace other workers.
Goecke said city staff members are working with the RTC to resolve the issue. He said the city council members who serve on the RTC board are aware of the issue. The unions involved are aware as well.
RTC General Manager Jacob Snow described the city's support as critical to the program. North Las Vegas, Henderson and Clark County, the other partners in the program, do not have employees who would be directly affected by the agreement.
Ultimately, the Las Vegas City Council will have to sign off on the agreement, Snow said.
"If that doesn't happen, there will be no commitment of RTC dollars to make this happen," he said. "I don't think it works unless it's all or nothing."
Federal, state and local officials will break ground Monday on a new, $15 million building that will house, in part, the new traffic control system.
The system is a centerpiece of the Regional Transportation Commission's effort to modernize the aging system that controls the lights that guide traffic through the region's arterial roads. For the first time, it would tie together the arterial roads with the highways, where growing traffic congestion has become a daily migraine for thousands of drivers.
Before the system can begin to coordinate the region's streets, highways and thousands of vehicles, the cities in the Las Vegas Valley will have to sign off on an interlocal agreement that makes the regional agency the boss of the FAST traffic control engineers.
The city's traffic engineers now function as an advisory board to the RTC. But the RTC board, which includes two members from the Las Vegas City Council, earlier this year said the traffic engineers working under the FAST system, with RTC money, should be accountable to the RTC.
The board members "want to ensure there is accountability to the public for the dollars that are spent," he said.
"My bosses, they like the system, they're committed to the system, they just want to ensure there is accountability to the public for the dollars that are spent."
The RTC board is made up of elected officials from throughout the region. RTC board members and Las Vegas City Councilmen Larry Brown and Michael Mack could not immediately be reached for comment.
Goecke said the city councilmen are aware of the issue affecting the employees.
"Our board members are very concerned about any city employee that may be displaced," he said.
The two unions that would be involved in the transfer of employees also are aware of the issue.
"I would have no comment on that," said Karen Frei, executive director of the Las Vegas City Employees' Association before abruptly hanging up the telephone.
Maryanne Salm, political director of the Service Employees International Union Local 1107, the union that represents county and RTC employees, said: "We're monitoring this very closely. We're going to ensure that the rights of the employees are protected in this process."
The system at the heart of the issue would be funded with $125 million in operating costs approved by Clark County voters last November as part of the overall $2.7 billion transit and transportation package.
"The planned role for the RTC is to be the administrator for the FAST system and to provide the majority of the funding -- capital and operational," Snow said.
Elements of the system will include metering of on-ramps to the region's freeways, with traffic lights to control the volume of vehicles merging into traffic. Remote controlled "dynamic messaging" signs warning of traffic accidents or roadwork are part of the system, and some are already in place on Interstate 15 and U.S. 95.
Similar signs could eventually come into use on the arterial streets, Snow said.
Coordinating all of the traffic throughout the region would be the more than 900 traffic lights, about 700 of which are tied into the system to communicate with each other and with human engineers seeking to improve traffic flow.
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