FAST and loose: RTC sees smoother traffic flow

Ed Koch and Launce Rake

Tuesday, April 13, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

Clark County took a "major step" in addressing gridlock last week with a vote by the Regional Transportation Commission that will create a centralized traffic control center, RTC Board Chairman and Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said.

The RTC board voted unanimously Thursday to take charge of the centralized, state-of-the-art traffic control system dubbed the Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation, or FAST.

The move comes 18 months after voters approved a $2.7 billion tax package for transportation improvements.

The FAST system had been partially under the control of Las Vegas city employees. The issues bogging down the transfer to the RTC included concerns among the cities and the traffic engineers' union. Those had to be hammered out before the RTC could take charge of the street signal light system that has frustrated Southern Nevadans for decades.

"This represents a major step," Woodbury said following the 8-0 voice vote. "It makes the RTC responsible for one more element (of transportation) which is the way it should be."

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said all of the local governments still needed to sign the agreement but he didn't see any obstacles to that. Snow said he hopes to have the interlocal agreement in place in time for a July turnover of the system to the RTC. The agreement will be in effect from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2009.

The RTC has promised the FAST system will integrate arterial road traffic signals with highway traffic, adding "intelligent" control elements such as lights to control freeway entrances. The benefits would be smoother drives, especially as motorists go between newly coordinated jurisdictions of cities and the county, the RTC has said.

As part of the system, signals already have been retimed along several streets, and the improvements in some cases have been dramatic, Snow said.

"On Warm Springs Road from Pecos Road to Valle Verde Drive the number of stops decreased by 100 percent -- meaning that you will not hit any red lights whatsoever during a typical noon-day period," Snow said. "We're starting to see some real improvements on the corridors, and this stuff doesn't cost a whole lot of money."

The new system also takes oversight away from a committee of traffic engineers and gives it to the RTC board, which is composed of elected representatives from local governments.

Srinivas Pulugurtha, assistant director, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Transportation Research Center, said the coordinated approach to the road system promised by FAST can pay off in a reduction of time spent in traffic and safety.

"The way traffic works is it goes from local roads to arterials to freeways," he said. The means that bottlenecks can occur when going from one level of roadway to another.

Coordinating the system can help ease those bottlenecks, he said, and that can pay off in additional safety.

"It's frustration that makes people make mistakes," Pulugurtha said. For example, one-third of all accidents in Las Vegas are due to drivers failing to yield when they should.

"By providing better service, there is a good possibility the system could reduce the number of crashes," he said.

There are limitations, however, to what the system can do.

"Right now, it's a very complicated job," with 400 to 500 major intersections to cover in the urban area, he said.

The system is likely to grow more complex as the urban area continues to expand and new control elements, such as on-ramp traffic lights for the freeways, are added.