Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Residents not on board with transit system

Green Valley resident Mike Berkey fits exactly the demographic Regional Transportation Commission officials are trying to lure to a proposed transit system.

The 30-year-old small-business owner with an expertise in computers is educated, somewhat affluent and lives about 100 yards from where a new public transit system would travel.

Instead, Berkey has parlayed his high-tech knowledge into setting up a Web site to criticize the plan and RTC officials he said are pushing the project despite objections from homeowners concerned about trains possibly rolling behind their property.

The RTC is planning a 33-mile "fixed guideway" system that would run from Henderson to North Las Vegas. The guideway uses trains, a light rail system or buses. The plan is still being developed.

Berkey is one in an increasingly vocal contingent of residents vowing to fight what could be an expensive project that leaves a lasting mark on the Las Vegas Valley. His Web site, www.stoptheguideway.com, includes an online petition for those wanting to formally oppose the project.

By Friday afternoon, three people had added their names to the petition, far fewer than the more than a dozen who regularly come to public meetings to speak out.

"I'd like to be farther along," in the process, Berkey said of the somewhat anemic response to his site.

Like those who have turned out at the RTC meetings, Berkey argues that the system could scar the once-rural area now dotted with tract home developments and estate-sized parcels. He said the trains would bring noise, crime and an overall decay in residents' quality of life.

It's a change Green Valley is not ready for, Berkey said.

"The corridor wasn't designed to have high-volume rail traffic," he said. "Any high-volume rail traffic is going to have detrimental effects."

Just how detrimental has been a matter of debate. The RTC has pointed to studies along light-rail lines in Dallas, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area that indicate homes and office buildings close to the line have seen premiums up to 23 percent for properties closer to those cities' lines.

That assertion has led to protests at times shouted to RTC General Manager Jacob Snow during a series of public forums on the project, during which homeowners -- mostly those in more upscale areas of Green Valley -- have accused the agency of sugar-coating questions about what a fixed-guideway system could mean here.

Berkey admitted that some of the meetings have devolved into "shouting matches," but said the RTC has done little to elicit comments from concerned homeowners.

"I really expected the forum to be a lot different," he said. "It felt more like I was at a convention, where they were all trying to hawk their wares."

The RTC has promised to do a more extensive study of Southern Nevada property values to better speculate how drastically a fixed-guideway system could affect home prices. Researchers on Friday were still working to complete the study, RTC spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman said.

Similar projects in other cities were unpopular in their planning stages, with Web sites and other efforts used in attempts to stop them, Reisman said.

"There's a group of homeowners who don't want to see this project at all, no matter what the technology is," Reisman said. "... I don't know that this group accurately represents the sentiment of the entire community. There are valid concerns that need to be addressed."

It's difficult to pinpoint how many people share Berkey's outrage. A study completed in February found that 54 percent of residents living along the entire 33-mile route saw no benefit in such a system. Among those surveyed, "neighborhood" concerns troubled them most, as worries about noise, property values and public perception of the project itself ranked high.

Another less vocal group would gladly trade their car keys for a rail pass. Miyoko Ono-Moore, a band assistant at Clark High School and a Green Valley resident, has attended most of the public meetings put on by the RTC and has spoken openly in support of the project.

Ono-Moore, who spends more than an hour a day commuting in her newly bought Toyota Prius hybrid, said she has independently researched the effect of a new rail line on surrounding properties and shares the RTC's belief that it could increase property values.

Those who claim they were never informed of the meetings may have tossed out RTC-sponsored post cards with their junk mail, she said.

"I've seen stuff on television and I know stuff has come up online," Ono-Moore said. "I think if you're relatively observant or listen to the radio, you'd hear about the public meetings."

The mother of college-age children doubted the RTC was pushing the project as a done deal.

"I think they're just presenting that they're getting input and that nothing has been decided," she said.

The RTC late last year set up a steering committee to review four separate alternatives for a 33-mile rail line between Henderson and North Las Vegas. The committee is now weighing an electric light rail, which guides the trains using overhead power lines; a diesel passenger train, an electric rubber-tire train and an expansion of existing MAX bus service.

Each fits the Federal Transportation Administration's definition of fixed guideway service, which includes light rail and buses in a dedicated travel lane.

Officials have pegged the cost of a new system at $700 million -- about $20 million a mile -- but have said it could be as much as $2.1 billion, depending on what kind of system RTC members approve.

If approved, the new system would run from Nevada State College at Henderson to downtown Las Vegas and could be completed by 2008. A second phase, which officials have previously predicted could be finished by 2014, would extend the route from downtown to the planned UNLV campus in North Las Vegas.

The committee is expected to make a formal recommendation to the RTC later this summer. Members can also suggest the RTC approve no expansion to service.

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