Columnist Susan Snyder: LV seeing double over bus plans

Friday, May 27, 2005 | 6:06 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

May 28 - 30, 2005

One question about the new privately owned double-decker buses that are to operate this summer on the Strip:

Do the seats on the upper, open level come with canola oil spray, or do we bring our own?

After all, the only thing one does on an open-air bus in Las Vegas during summer is cook.

Last week a recent transplant from Germany invited Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to join him at Fremont Street Experience and unveil the first of 10 double-decker tourist buses that are to hit the Strip this summer.

(The fact that the Strip isn't in Goodman's city or that Fremont Street competes for its tourists in some measure didn't seem to bother anyone.)

The list of folks invited to the ceremony did not include Jacob Snow, executive director of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, which is putting its own double-deckers on the Strip this fall.

"We don't really know much about them," Sue Christensen, RTC spokeswoman, said Thursday. "We heard about it at the very end of last week. It was a fluke."

How did they hear? At a public meeting, where a television reporter asked whether RTC officials planned to attend the opening of London Transport Corp.'s new venture.

What opening? Oops. Sounds more faux pas than fluke.

"We've been working on this for two years," Christensen said of the RTC's plan to replace some regular buses with double-deckers. "Our first ones are on their way right now from North Carolina."

They're not arriving by flatbed. The RTC's fleet is arriving from London by ship, then being driven across the country to Las Vegas.

Visualize them parked in a rest stop outside Memphis, Tenn., or pulling into a truck stop for gas in Amarillo, Texas. Truckers who need to look cool need not apply. Those who want to stay cool, however, might want to.

The RTC's buses are fully enclosed and air-conditioned.

"These are designed specifically for the desert," Christensen said.

Twenty double-deck buses will replace the conventional ones currently in use. Those will be sent to other routes or, if too old, retired. The move will help increase the frequency of buses on existing routes and may result in new routes, Christensen said. The agency is scheduled to add at least seven new routes over the next 25 years.

Although transportation officials were surprised to learn of the new arrivals, they don't seem worried about the competition. The RTC and Raimond Capel, London Transport's owner, have different goals.

For $25 a day, riders can get on or off Capel's red London look-alikes as often as they please. And the rides will include guides offering Las Vegas facts and lore. Snarled Strip traffic definitely would be more fun to endure when someone else is driving and you are sitting up high watching a volcano erupt.

The RTC will charge $5 for an all-day ticket to run up and down the Strip. There's no tour guide, but there is that air-conditioning.

Which sounds better when it's 112?

Only time will tell.

"We'll just wait and see," Christensen said.