RTC will ask feds for $150 million for trains

Stephen Curran

Friday, Jan. 28, 2005 | 10 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission will push ahead with a request for $150 million in federal funds for a fixed guideway system planners say could eventually link Henderson to North Las Vegas, the commission's general manager said Thursday.

The anticipated request, reviewed by the RTC's executive advisory committee, is part of a list of priorities the RTC is expected to submit to the federal government later this month. It comes on the heels of the commission's confirmation Wednesday that the federal Transportation Department would not set aside more than $320 million in next year's budget for a two-mile extension of the Las Vegas Monorail.

Meanwhile Jacob Snow, the RTC's general manager, said a future monorail extension was "not off the table," as planners had only recently begun weighing four separate fixed guideway technologies that would run alongside the existing 4-mile monorail line and the now-uncertain extension.

The Federal Transportation Administration, the Transportation Department agency that would directly fund the RTC's planned transportation system, defines fixed guideway service as any form of transportation that operates in a dedicated lane or track. Those guidelines include electric light rail, diesel light rail, a rubber tire light rail and an extension to the existing MAX hybrid-electric buses that run in their own lanes downtown and along the Strip.

"They (the monorail) can still try and compete in a year," Snow said, adding that the Transportation Department could still set aside money for the monorail in its 2007 budget. "But ridership will need to increase and we believe it will."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, speaking at his weekly press conference, said the city "couldn't wait" for the monorail money and had begun looking at alternatives.

Goodman said Snow had told him of the likely decision from the federal government about a month ago. He downplayed any negative impact the monorail extension's fate could have on downtown redevelopment plans.

"I won't allow" the lack of a monorail expansion to jeopardize downtown redevelopment, he said. "If I have to I'll take a bike and I'll bike people around."

Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail, said the 107-day closure had prevented the company from gathering the necessary ridership data.

The primary focus is now maintaining trouble-free system operations, he said.

"We have always wanted to see our own ridership and revenue (numbers) before we would make our determination," Walker said. "We want to see any impacts of an expansion. We want a number of months, or even a year, to see how expansion would impact the system."

The $150 million -- the largest of 16 items in five individual categories on the RTC's list of priorities -- is expected to come from a variety of Section 5309 New Start accounts within a larger Highway Trust Fund, which includes an 18.4-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline. Of that, roughly 3 cents a gallon is set aside for mass transit, Snow said.

Those funds have been deposited in an account dedicated to mass transit improvements, money the RTC hopes to dip into, he said.

"We've got Nevada that has been paying into the account but has had little in the way of mass transit," Snow said.

Like the money that would have been earmarked for the monorail, these funds are expected to appear in the Federal Register early next month, Snow said.

The RTC, which in September formed a steering committee to study proposed fixed guideway plans, has touted the service as a way to bring the county's public transportation infrastructure up to speed with the area's rapid growth. One plan called for converting the little-used, 33-mile rail route to Henderson.

If approved by the RTC, the new system would run from the Nevada State College at Henderson to downtown. A second phase, which officials had previously predicted could be finished within 10 years, would extend the route from downtown to a planned UNLV satellite campus in North Las Vegas.

Early estimates have pegged the cost of a new system at $700 million -- about $20 million a mile -- but it could be as much as $2.1 billion, depending what type of system is approved.

Other top priorities include a $112 million request for an interchange that would link the Las Vegas Beltway with U.S. 95 and $30 million for a downtown transportation terminal to serve as a hub for bus and possible fixed guideway service.