Motorists warned about U.S. 95 ramp meters

Stephen Curran

Monday, March 14, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

For more information regarding the new traffic lights at on-ramps, call the Regional Transportation's Ramp Meter Hotline at 385-RAMP (7267) or visit www.rtcsouthern-nevada.com.

The Regional Transportation Commission is 15 days away from knowing whether its campaign to prepare Southern Nevadans for freeway on-ramp traffic lights has worked.

The first sets of the new traffic signals (which officials call "ramp meters") were installed at three locations along U.S. 95 months ago and were initially set to be turned on March 1. But the activation date was postponed to give the RTC and state Transportation Department more time to try to ease the public into the new experience of having to stop before entering the freeway at some times on some on-ramps -- and getting ticketed for not obeying the lights.

"This is a very new concept for commuters who drive here," Ingrid Reisman, an RTC spokeswoman, said. "There's going to be enforcement of these meters, and it's our duty and our obligation to get the information out."

To that end, the RTC's and Transportation Department launched a campaign that included radio advertisements, 15-second television commercials and a number of articles appearing in the RTC-sponsored "On the Move" newsletter and ClubRide magazine in addition to community meetings and fliers, Reisman said.

Aside from the television commercials, purchased by the Transportation Department at the RTC's request, the advertisements were bought using existing media contracts, Reisman said.

At its core, the two agencies' program centers on something most people have learned while still in elementary school: Red lights mean stop; green means go.

The two-color light systems, which cost about $50,000 apiece, are positioned along the southbound ramps for west and eastbound Lake Mead Boulevard in addition to another at the southbound on-ramp at Cheyenne Avenue.

The on-ramp traffic lights will operate only during peak hours, usually during morning and evening rush hours, Bob McKenzie, a Transportation Department spokesman, said.

The plan calls for a carpool lane that will let cars carrying two or more people bypass the signals. A yet-unscheduled second phase of the project plans meters on U.S. 95 at the Fourth Street/Casino Center Boulevard northbound ramp, Las Vegas Boulevard and Eastern Avenue.

They are part of a larger network that will include traffic monitoring cameras and electronic traffic information signs as part of the RTC's Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation plan, which uses computers to govern the number of cars at each ramp and will time the signals accordingly.

The state agency in January announced it would turn the signals on March 1, but later decided to continue a string of public meetings and mass-mailings touting the meters, McKenzie said.

"We want people to know what it is and how it affects them," he said. "It's not like opening a bridge or anything. It's an education process."

Trooper Angie Chavera, a Nevada Highway Patrol spokeswoman, said she hopes people don't have to learn the hard way that like a regular traffic light, motorists who travel through a red light will face a fine.

"Those signs are up and warning everybody" about when the meters will be activated, she said. "When we're out there, we will be" writing citations, she said.

The Highway Patrol supports the new lights in large part because they are expected to reduce traffic accidents. They are credited with reducing traffic accidents in congested traffic by 24 percent in Minneapolis and 39 percent in Seattle.

On the stretch of U.S. 95 where the new traffic lights will be activated, drivers frequently resort to driving on the shoulder to avoid bottleneck traffic, the kind of illegal maneuver the signals have been proven to reduce in other cities, Chavera said.