RTC nears severing ties with monorail firm

Stephen Curran

Friday, May 20, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday took the first step to terminate its agreement with the firm contracted to build a now-shelved extension to the Las Vegas Monorail.

By an 8-0 vote, the board formally authorized RTC General Manager Jacob Snow to negotiate a mutual termination agreement between the county agency and Transit Systems Development, an offshoot of the monorail company's for-profit operations arm, Transit Systems Management.

A resolution is expected to come before the RTC board at its monthly meeting in June.

The Federal Transportation Administration in January denied more than $320 million to extend the monorail from the Sahara hotel two miles to downtown Las Vegas, citing mechanical failures and lower-than-expected ridership on the existing four-mile line.

The denial ended the RTC's plans for a public-private partnership with the monorail company for the foreseeable future.

The two entities signed an agreement in August 2003, according to the RTC. A copy of the agreement states it can be severed "for cause, by mutual agreement, failure to finance, or convenience."

Cam Walker, the president and owner of Transit Systems Development, said ending the partnership was not a death knell for a relatively low-frills, privately financed extension.

"It means we're going to work out a way to separate and get out of the (agreement) to build the downtown extension in the federal fashion," said Walker, who is also president of Transit Systems Management. "We will part ways amicably."

He criticized federal government plans to increase the number of stations along the new route from two to four and the number of trains from two to five. Those additions more than doubled the cost of the project, which under the monorail company's plan would have come in at between $100 million and $200 million, Walker said.

Transit Systems, which Walker said still holds a necessary right-of-way agreement for the extension route, is expected to continue looking at other possible additions, including a line to McCarran International Airport, he said.

Thursday's vote gave the RTC a chance to move forward with plans to expand its Metropolitan Area Express fixed-guideway system along the route that the monorail extension would have followed.

"We'd been hoping to have a monorail," along that route, Snow said. "That is not possible."

Instead, the agency is throwing its support behind the MAX extension, which qualifies for roughly $63 million in federal grant money allocated to fixed-guideway projects. The MAX system, a train-like hybrid bus that operates in a dedicated travel lane, is considered a fixed-guideway system under federal rules that define such technology as any system that runs in its own lane.

In a separate motion, the board approved 8-0 a request for proposals for 50 new buses using the same technology as the foreign-built MAX system. Proposals are due to the RTC in August, with the board selecting a system in its September meeting. If approved, a new system could be implemented within the next two years, Snow said.

Unlike the planned monorail line, which was expected to stay along Las Vegas Boulevard north of Sahara Avenue, the MAX alternative would continue on Main Street and Grand Central Parkway.

The Las Vegas City Council earlier this month passed a resolution supporting the project. An RTC consultant told the board Thursday that more than 96 percent of riders surveyed along existing MAX routes in North Las Vegas indicated they had "good" or "excellent" experiences on those buses.