Friday, June 9, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.
Nevada faces a $3.8 billion shortfall in highway funding, leaving Southern Nevadans facing an unpleasant choice: higher taxes or gridlock on most major Las Vegas Valley freeways within a decade.
That's the tough conclusion of a task force created by Gov. Kenny Guinn and the state transportation board to evaluate Nevada's highway demands and identify possible funding sources for road projects needed to lessen the ever-increasing traffic strains attendant to the state's projected growth.
As the panel searches for ways to close the gap between $13 billion in projected highway needs and $9.2 billion in revenue between now and fiscal 2015, its members will examine nearly two dozen potential tax increases. Those range from possible hikes in taxes on gasoline, rental cars and vehicle registration to toll roads, gaming taxes and revenue from sale of surplus federal lands.
"We think everybody should pay something," task force Chairman Phillip Peckman told the Sun's editorial board Thursday. "We hope what we come up with is pretty broad so that everybody suffers a little instead of anyone suffering a lot."
A focal point of the discussion on future highway needs involves nearly $5 billion for 10 "superprojects," $100 million-plus plans that, if not funded, could produce the direst consequences for motorists.
Seven of the 10 projects are in Southern Nevada, led by $1.3 billion for improvements on U.S. 95 from Foothills Road to the Spaghetti Bowl and $1.2 billion for upgrades to Interstate 15 from Tropicana Avenue to the Spaghetti Bowl.
A series of maps prepared by the Nevada Transportation Department, color-coded to denote current and projected future traffic conditions, vividly underline the potential impact of not funding those and other high priority projects.
The current map shows red lines - the worst ranking, indicating gridlock during rush hour - on portions of highways in the central Las Vegas Valley, primarily U.S. 95 and Interstates 15 and 215.
By 2015, if the highway projects are not built, the sections of highways facing gridlock would more than double, according to state Transportation Department projections. And the map for 2030 is almost completely covered by red lines, a grim vision of the future that portends gridlock on nearly every stretch of highways and interstates in the region unless the priority projects are funded.
Although the task force still is reviewing the thorny topic, Peckman said he is "99 percent sure" that the panel will validate the "superprojects" list.
The more difficult part of the task force's job will be to develop a financing scheme for the various projects.
"The crux of it is, there is not enough money to build these roads," said Peckman, who also is an executive in the chairman's office of the Greenspun Corp., which owns the Las Vegas Sun.
"To do these projects over eight years, it will cost (an extra) $270 million to $300 million a year in tax money."
That means state legislators must step up to the plate, Peckman said.
"Next February when they begin, they are going to have to shift funding or raise taxes," he said.
If legislators do not make the politically difficult choice to increase taxes for highways, the earliest practical opportunity to put a ballot measure for that purpose before voters would be November 2008, Peckman said.
A nearly two-year delay in addressing the highway needs, task force members stressed, could worsen traffic conditions and push up the ultimate price tag because of inflation.
The task force intends to make its recommendations shortly after the August primary - a timetable deliberately chosen so that this fall's gubernatorial and state legislative candidates would have to face up to the tough question of how they propose to meet the state's pressing highway challenges.
"Our goal is to make this ... part of the election," Peckman said.
The state highway fund currently receives most of its revenue from the 17.65 percent gas tax and from Department of Motor Vehicles fees. It also receives federal and bond money.
The projected 2006-2015 deficit is caused by several factors, state Transportation Department Director Jeff Fontaine said.
While use of the highway system has grown, gasoline usage per person has declined thanks to a trend toward fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles, Fontaine said.
And though the fuel tax has not increased since 1991, highway construction costs have jumped by double digits in the last two years , he said.
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