Wednesday, March 3, 2004 | 9:15 a.m.
Pedicabs, rickshaws and similar conveyances pulled by people or animals were barred from the Strip by the Clark County Commission Tuesday.
The commission, responding to complaints from Metro Police that the vehicles are unsafe and from county public works staff that the vehicles interfere with traffic, voted the vehicles off Las Vegas Boulevard from Russell Road to Sahara Avenue and off Paradise Road from Harmon Avenue to Karen Avenue.
About a dozen owners and operators of pedicabs objected to the law. Several Las Vegas-area bicyclists also protested the rule, arguing that the law would make it illegal for them to carry cargo, passengers such as small children or pets in trailers.
John Tosh, manager of Clark County Public Work's traffic management division, said the basic problem is that the vehicles get in the way of traffic and block sidewalks, sometimes forcing pedestrians into the street. He said the county and contributing resorts on the Strip have spent "tens of millions to enhance pedestrian safety," and "hundreds of millions enhancing traffic capacity" for motorized vehicles, and the pedicabs and similar vehicles frustrate both ends.
Jane Feldman, an activist with the local arm of the Sierra Club, disagreed.
"The best thing for a healthy, vibrant, comfortable city to live in is to have a choice of transportation methods," she said. "We're not getting that here."
Pedicab defenders said there has never been a fatal accident involving one of the vehicles on the Strip.
"It's a safe, reliable form of transportation," said Richard Beauregard, who peddles a pedicab. "Yes, regulate us, make us all conform, but let us operate."
Beauregard and other operators, who rent their vehicles from a number of companies near the Strip, argued that through regulation and training they can provide a safe, nonpolluting way to move around the resort corridor. They asked to be allowed to operate on limited areas of Las Vegas Boulevard.
Those requests went unfulfilled, but county staff members said the pedicabs and similar vehicles are not banned altogether. They still can operate outside the central resort corridor under new rules also passed Tuesday.
In the companion law, would-be operators must pay $75 for a license to operate the vehicles, maintain a valid business license and insurance, and go through a background investigation to receive a work card from Metro.
Jacqueline Holloway, director of Clark County Business Licensing, told the commission that operators do not pay taxes or have business licenses.
The county's move is the latest chapter in a long-running controversy over the pedicabs. Operators cannot legally demand payment for rides, but police have said they received complaints from tourists complaining that they were forced to pay for the rides, which generally go up and down the Strip.
Police also reported that some pedicab operators tried to steer passengers toward strip clubs, prostitutes or drug dealers.
Several taxi drivers at the commission meeting also argued that the pedicabs needed to be moved off the Strip. Craig Harris, one of thousands of cabbies plying the resort area, said his customers on Las Vegas Boulevard want to arrive quickly to their destinations and pedicabs get in the way. He suggested that visitors looking for relaxed drives in a pedicab or horse-drawn cart would be better off in Arizona.
"If they want to relax, go to Scottsdale," he said.
Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey was the sole voice on the commission against the move. She said regulation and training could ease some of the concerns and problems posed by the operators.
"Taxis are heavily regulated," Kincaid-Chauncey said. "That's made taxicabs in Las Vegas safer and more efficient. I'm not sure there's not a way to do that with pedicabs. I really have a difficult problem with putting a whole type of business out of business."
Holloway, however, said the county rules don't put the industry out of business because the vehicles can still operate on private property or out of the resort corridor.
Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who is also chairman of the Regional Transportation Commission, said the move does not mean the county is opposed to bicycles.
"We want to freely encourage alternative modes of transportation," he said. "But we have to be realistic where these alternative modes of transportation can safely occur."
The rules passed 6-1, with Kincaid-Chauncey voting against.
Bicyclist Ed Thiessen, a board member of the Silver State Bicycle Coalition and the Las Vegas Valley Bicycle Club, said he hopes that the county will amend the rules later to allow privately owned bicycles with cargo trailers to operate in the resort corridor.
He said the law could signal to taxi drivers and other motorists that bicyclists are second-class citizens and unwelcome on Las Vegas Boulevard.
"I would like to see the business licensing office and bicycle advocacy groups sit down and work this all out," he said.
A year ago, passing the law restricting pedicabs on Las Vegas Boulevard would have been more difficult. Bobby Shelton, Clark County Public Works spokesman, said that the transfer of jurisdiction last year of Las Vegas Boulevard from the state to the county eliminated at least one step.
The transfer meant that the county did not have to coordinate the ordinance with the state because the boulevard is no longer a state highway, Shelton said.
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