Motorists will get FAST look at traffic

Heather Rawlyk

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 | 11:45 a.m.

Traffic information will be just a phone call away with the introduction of a new telephone number, an addition to the Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation, or FAST.

As it upgrades its system of collecting data across the Las Vegas Valley, FAST, a joint venture of area municipalities and the state, plans to make prerecorded traffic information available. Motorists will be able to get the information by simply dialing 511 as early as this fall.

Transportation Department officials expect to have some information on road and traffic conditions, said Robert Chisel of the DOT. Eventually FAST plans to have freeway and roadway monitoring systems throughout the valley working with the 511 system to give drivers information on the quickest routes, Niel Rohleder, FAST's traffic system manager, said.

FAST currently coordinates traffic signal timing, synchronizing the lights to keep cars moving.

The next step for FAST is to install closed circuit cameras and meters along the freeways to constantly monitor that traffic, Rohleder said.

The cameras and meters will provide crucial information to the traffic experts, who then can make it available on the proposed traffic information number, Rohleder said. The number may also provide weather and road conditions, he said.

The information also may be made available on the Internet or on a dedicated radio station, similar to 1610, the AM radio station currently used to broadcast road construction updates. Rohleder said he also would like to see the website include streaming video or snapshot images of traffic conditions as they occur.

But first, he said, the system has to be installed to gather the information.

"We want to have our eyes in the field," Rohleder said. "We will be able to sense how slow or fast the traffic is going."

The completion of the system along all of the Las Vegas Valley's freeways will take eight years, but Rohleder said pieces of it will be put into place as soon as they can be.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the use of 511 nationwide for traffic information several years ago, Rohleder said, and already some areas have systems operating. Salt Lake City, Phoenix and San Francisco have systems, and recently when he was on vacation, Rohleder said he used systems along Interstate 40 in Arizona, and in Nebraska and Iowa.

"What we will be able to do is to give people alternatives for their normal freeway commute,"he said.

The idea, Rohleder said, is to make the best use of the roads and try to put off the need for more new roads as the population grows.

"Everybody understands that we can't put down a lot more roads," he said. "It's a challenging and very expensive thing. The goal since the late 1990s has been to make better use of the roadways."

That approach was seconded by Jane Feldman, conservation chairwoman for the Southern Nevada group of the Sierra Club.

"I'm really tired about having all this construction. If we can make better use of what we've got, that's a better thing than construction and construction cost," she said.

"It's pretty obvious that we can't build roads fast enough here, so if we learn to make better use of the roads we do have, that would be a good thing."

Rohleder said that FAST, once completed, may not reduce congestion but it may help Las Vegas area roads keep up with growth.

"As we grow more and more, maybe we can keep congestion where it is today," he said. "That's now our goal. Well, our goal is to reduce it, but we have to make sure that we keep it at least where it is today, at a minimum."