Traffic control system in gridlock

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

Two years ago local elected policymakers promised Clark County residents a centralized, state-of-the-art traffic control system if they supported a $2.7 billion tax package for transportation improvements.

Voters and the Legislature approved the plan, but the traffic control system has stalled, much to the annoyance of members of the Regional Transportation Commission board. The RTC was supposed to replace the city of Las Vegas as the main agency overseeing the existing traffic-control system.

The RTC has promised a system that would 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 move also would take oversight away from a committee of traffic engineers and give it to the RTC board, which is made up of elected representatives from local governments.

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow told the board that transferring the existing Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation, the traffic-control agency, from the jurisdiction of Las Vegas to the RTC has run into jurisdictional issues as well as long-standing disputes over pay and benefits for the traffic controllers who would switch bosses.

"I think we've made an awful lot of progress working with the city of Las Vegas on the human resources problem," Snow told the board. "Where we've had some problem is working with the entities maintaining control of the system. They've been very reluctant, in my opinion, in giving up a system that has been under their control.

"We haven't been able to resolve the issues of local control and how the system will be funded."

Snow said one issue complicating the transfer of oversight is that the engineers now running the system want to put more money into salaries, expanding the hours that the system guides traffic through the urban streets from 10 hours a day to 24. The move would necessitate hiring more engineers to cover the expanded hours.

But the RTC believes a better way to spend the money is more controlled traffic signals.

"We do need some staffing up, but we get a much bigger bang for the buck by signaling up," Snow said.

The RTC has another related problem -- money. The agency was prepared to take control of a FAST system that three years ago had an annual budget of $1.8 million, which included compensation for fewer than two dozen employees and all capital costs.

Since then, the budget has grown to more than $4 million, according to RTC Deputy General Manager Curtis Myles. Snow, his boss, said the money just isn't there for that size budget.

"There isn't the revenue for the RTC to do all of that," Snow said.

The budget issue could make the city's plans to go to a 24-hour control system impossible, he said.

RTC board member and Las Vegas City Councilman Larry Brown said transferring the jurisdiction for traffic control will be difficult.

"Jacob understates the issues," he said. The contractual issues for the system employees remain because there is "a little bit of inequity" between the city's salary and benefits package and the county's. RTC employees are covered by the county's collective bargaining agreement.

Brown said, however, the budget growth at the traffic control system is not a poison pill to stop the takeover.

"Everybody agrees that we have to get to that point" of the transfer, he said.

RTC board members and Clark County commissioners Bruce Woodbury and Chip Maxfield, who led the drive for the approval of the $2.7 billion Question 10 funding, said they are frustrated with the lack of movement on the issue.

Maxfield said repeated predictions that the impasse would be resolved have failed to materialize.

"It's not going to do anything but hurt the longer we delay this," he said. "Everybody needs to recognize the overall bigger picture. It's time to just get the differences ironed out, on the table and move forward."

Woodbury agreed.

"I understand these are not simple issues," he said. "But we have a commitment to the public. We need to get it done at some point in the future."

The RTC board moved to approve $600,000 for Las Vegas to design conduits for controlling traffic lights. The city had asked for $6.5 million, which would have paid for both design and construction for the control elements.

Snow said funding for the design alone would allow the project to go forward while the oversight issues for the FAST system are negotiated.

-- In other RTC action, Snow reported that local governments and RTC staff have come close to finalizing a system to prioritize spending on "high-speed lanes miles." About $400 million of Question 10 money is available for construction of the highway lanes, and the cities and the county all want a piece of that pie.

Snow told the commissioners that the local entities have worked well to create a system of priorities that seems to satisfy nearly everyone, although some of the conversations on the issue have been "heated."

He said the RTC staff will come back to the board soon with a completed process for prioritizing spending on the need. During the campaign for Question 10, the RTC promised that 425 high-speed lane miles would be built with $1 billion in funding from the 25-year tax package. Most, $600 million, of that will go for work on the Las Vegas Beltway, but the rest will go towards construction projects in other parts of the urban area.