Columnist Susan Snyder: Mass transit going in reverse

Tuesday, March 1, 2005 | 8:08 a.m.

Henderson City Council members deserve an award.

We'll call it the Silver Buckle and award it to the elected officials whose buckling to a vocal minority forced the Regional Transportation Commission last week to withdraw plans for the city's first mass-transit center.

"It sets back the city of Henderson several years in public transportation," Ingrid Reisman, RTC spokeswoman, said Monday. "It's much-needed for current transit and future transit users."

Over the past five years, Henderson's city staff -- the people who recommended approval of the transit center -- have received more than half a dozen awards for creating alternative transportation options and encouraging use of public transit. Nevada's second-largest city is one of its better places to walk or commute by bus or bicycle.

Its elected officials should be recognized for their recent contributions to public transit as well. Each Silver Buckle Award should be engraved with "Two years and $400,000."

That is how much public time and money was spent on design and environmental review of the 4.2-acre site near College and Horizon Ridge drives.

The RTC now will spend the remaining $2 million federal grant on Las Vegas' downtown transit center. And Henderson will go without.

Bully for them.

The RTC pulled out because Henderson council members buckled Feb. 15 to opposition from residents of the 99-unit Black Mountain Condominiums on College Drive.

One of the residents told a Las Vegas Sun reporter that his senior citizen neighbors "have paid their dues" and shouldn't have to live near a state-of-the art station where we vagrants who ride transit can seek shelter while waiting for another bus -- or in the future, light rail.

A facility with bathrooms and adjacent a child care center would bring noise, criminals and pedophiles, the resident said.

As I try to figure out into which of these categories I fit when I ride the bus to work, let's assume that people who use transit are mostly pedophiles, criminals and vagrants. A clean, well-appointed station with 24-hour security would, then, seem a more appealing neighbor than an unattended bus stop next to a vacant lot.

It would be good, and refreshingly forward-thinking, if Henderson's elected officials could find a way to reconsider placing a transit station in their city.

But the RTC spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on finding the best spot for such a station. It is not seem likely they pursue a secondary, and less desirable, site.

As the transit agency expands its new MAX bus system along Boulder Highway and examines light rail through its Regional Fixed Guideway Committee, it is a shame to think the objections of a few could continue to kill solutions needed for the many.

"We're going to continue to grow," Reisman said of Southern Nevada. "If we don't address the transportation situation as a multimodal solution, we will all suffer."

According to its official motto, Henderson is "A Place to Call Home."

Unless you use transit.

If so, you might want to consider living someplace else.