Transportation cuts may not affect local highway projects

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission has yet to see if deep cuts in the president's proposed $2.57 trillion federal budget will trickle down to an ambitious wish list the agency outlined last month, an RTC spokeswoman said Monday.

Saying it was "too soon to tell" whether an overall 1 percent decrease in the federal Transportation Department's budget will directly affect a number of highway and fixed-guideway projects, the county agency has not begun tightening its belt to make room for deeper cuts, Ingrid Reisman, an RTC spokeswoman, said.

"Right now we don't foresee any changes to our plan," she said. "... So far it doesn't mean a lot. It's nothing we haven't anticipated."

The president's budget, submitted to Congress on Monday, is the first in a multi-step process to approve a new federal budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Congress is now required to pass its own Congressional Budget Resolution, which does not require the president's signature.

The proposed budget includes $57.5 billion for the federal Transportation Department. The department this morning confirmed the RTC's expectations that the Las Vegas Monorail would not receive federal funding for a planned, 2-mile extension.

The announcement, made by Federal Transit Administrator Jennifer Dorn, confirmed an announcement by RTC officials that the monorail would be denied more than $320 million in Section 5309 New Starts money to continue the existing system.

A full report outlining proposals for a variety of projects nationwide, including those requested by the RTC, is expected to be released later today, she said.

The most drastic federal cuts went to Amtrak, the almost 35-year-old rail service that, according to the proposed budget, is saddled with debt. The rail agency's federal subsidies were wiped out amid crumbling infrastructure and poor performance. If the cuts go into effect, the rail agency can expect its federal allocation to drop from $1.2 billion in 2005 to $360 million next year.

Among the long-term spending hikes is a $283.9 billion plan to update the country's highway and infrastructure in a six year-period, a 35 percent increase from the the previous six-year spending totals, according to the budget.

The final figure fell short of the RTC's initial projections, although the overall number had little relevance to individual projects, Reisman said.

The RTC's executive advisory committee late last month reviewed a list of priorities that included a $150 million request for a proposed regional fixed guideway system to eventually link Henderson to North Las Vegas.

That request, the largest of 16 items in five individual categories on the RTC's list of priorities, would likely be paid through a variety of accounts within a federally managed Highway Trust Fund, the RTC has said.

The plan is expected to remain unchanged, Reisman said.

Also requested by the RTC was $112 million to upgrade a beltway interchange where the freeway meets U.S. 95, a plan that may fall under a long-term spending plan outlined in the federal budget, she said.

"Of course we would like to see it (the total figure) higher," Reisman said. "But it's not so much in the total amount where it will really affect projects. It's how that total amount is broken up."