Letter: Taxing developers would help ease traffic

Friday, June 22, 2007 | 9:13 a.m.

After reading Liz Benston's June 21 article in the Las Vegas Sun about Kirk Kerkorian hanging in with MGM Mirage for the new Strip construction plans, it became obvious to me that one way to defray the costs of transportation in Las Vegas would be to impose a surtax on all new construction, particularly developments that will create additional traffic.

If it's true that by 2009, CityCenter - MGM Mirage's complex next to the Bellagio - and others will be completed, then in just two years the congestion on Las Vegas Boulevard, Interstate 15 and the surrounding areas will become unbearable. Gridlock will be a daily event. So the answer is, hey developer, casino owner and hotel corporation, you build/develop, you build/pay for the infrastructure that provides the ingress and egress for your profit-making enterprise. Roads, traffic signals, jitneys, trolleys, buses - you provide the means to relieve the traffic and we (taxpayers) let you build your dream.

Probably wouldn't hurt either to have you guys pony up to extend the monorail to the airport, support a new passenger airport, etc., to get all those new customers of yours to your sites easier and faster.

Sidney H. Goodman, Las Vegas