Jacob Snow talks about the steps the RTC is taking to keep Las Vegas traffic moving where i stand

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007 | 10 p.m.

In August the Where I Stand column is turned over to guest writers. Today's columnist is Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

Whether you drive to work, take the bus, ride a bicycle or walk, transportation affects your quality of life here in Southern Nevada. Roads are always more crowded than drivers would like and buses are always slower than riders would like.

The daunting task of accommodating the 100 cars that are added to our roadways every day is all too real for me, as general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

I'm often asked why we can't keep up with growth. What would that mean here in Southern Nevada?

Keeping up would require us to add 2,500 feet of asphalt every day to build roads for those new cars. With each new car requiring roughly five new parking spaces in the valley, we'll need 53 square miles of new parking by 2019. Those new roads, parking spaces and cars mean longer drives, more expensive commutes and a frustrating dependence on the automobile.

That doesn't have to be the case. Though the RTC's transit service carries more than 61 million passengers per year, the system isn't as fast as a trip made by an individual car.

This month the RTC broke ground on our ACE rapid transit system, which will connect the northwest part of the valley with Henderson, North Las Vegas, southwest Las Vegas, downtown and the Strip.

The system will be similar to the RTC's MAX line, which operates on Las Vegas Boulevard North. The vehicles look more like a train than a bus but have the freedom to operate on any street.

Dedicated transit lanes will allow the vehicles to operate without competing with other vehicles, frequent service will mean never waiting long for a ride, and limited stops will make the trip fast. Routes can be crafted to meet the needs of the community, and they can be specialized to accommodate special events or new developments.

Park and ride lots will make the system convenient for riders. People who don't live close to a transit stop will be able to drive to a park and ride lot, grab a cup of coffee and take a fast transit ride to work.

Wireless Internet access will offer an easy way to catch up on e-mail or the news before heading into work. The system will provide similar service to San Francisco's BART system or Portland's MAX system.

Riders can expect an experience that will make driving their own cars to some places in the valley unnecessary. We know that the system won't replace the personal car for all trips. But it has the ability to provide fast, reliable service to those willing to take a break from driving, even for just a few days each week.

Besides the new rapid transit system, the RTC continues to plan for new roadways and improvements to existing roads. Work is progressing on the Beltway. Crews are building out the full freeway in the areas now served by frontage roads.

The RTC is also studying corridors for additional superarterials, which allow traffic to travel for long distances without being stopped by traffic lights. A study to create a superarterial along stretches of Sahara is in its final stages, and similar studies are under way on Flamingo and Tropicana. These plans to improve road capacity are ambitious and necessary.

If those improvements are not implemented, we'll see worsening travel conditions throughout the valley. Roads will become more crowded. The 20-minute trip to the mall or to work will take 30 to 40 minutes.

Paying for those projects is the challenge. The cost of building roads has risen sharply because of increased prices of asphalt, cement and steel.

Voters have twice approved ballot questions to fund transportation and that money has been used to fund the Beltway, among other major roadway projects. But with construction costs rising roughly 20 percent a year, the money voters approved simply doesn't build what it did just a few years ago.

There may be a need for an additional ballot question in the next few years to fund future transportation projects. Voters may have an opportunity to decide whether additional transportation projects fit within the community's budget.

The RTC is one of the few agencies in the country responsible for both transportation planning and transit service. That gives us the ability to plan roads and to accommodate rapid transit in those same corridors.

I am confident that we've identified solutions that will make transportation easier in the valley. Future traffic congestion will not be caused by a failure to plan; it will be caused by an inability to implement those plans because of a lack of money. The real cost to all of us will be in the time we spend sitting in traffic.