RTC breaks ground on $17 million downtown transit center

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

From left, Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, RTC General Manager Jacob Snow and RTC Deputy General Manager Tina Quigley join together to break ground Monday on the $17-million Bonneville Transit Center located at Casino Center Boulevard and Bonneville Avenue.

By Kyle Hansen (contact)

Monday, Aug. 31, 2009 | 4:10 p.m.

Bonneville Transit Center groundbreaking

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Bonneville Transit Center

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Bonneville Transit Center

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The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada broke ground Monday on its Bonneville Transit Center in downtown Las Vegas.

The $17 million transit center will be the main terminal for the RTC’s new ACE bus lines, scheduled to begin service early next year.

“This Bonneville Transit Center is going to be the hub of our transportation system, exactly where it needs to be in downtown Las Vegas,” U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) said at the ceremony.

The new facility on the southwest corner of Casino Center Boulevard and Bonneville Avenue is designed to accommodate people taking various methods of transportation.

It will have preferred parking for hybrid vehicles, 100 bike parking spaces and air-conditioned waiting areas for bus passengers.

Speakers at the event hailed the new center as the key piece of the RTC’s efforts to increase the number of people in the valley who take public transit.

“This facility certainly is helping us reinvent transit in Southern Nevada to get those people out of their cars -– and we certainly love our cars in Southern Nevada,” said Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, the RTC board chairman.

“We have to make our system comfortable, convenient and consistent, and this facility goes a long way to accomplish that,” he said.

The center will include a 1,800-square-foot bicycle station with showers, restrooms and a bike repair shop, in addition to the bike parking.

“It’s going to bike-friendly,” Brown said. “For the cyclists in the valley, this is going to be the premier place to truly combine a transit ride with your cycling abilities.”

General Manager Jacob Snow, an avid cyclist, showed up to the event in his riding clothes.

RTC buses currently carry about 60,000 bicycles each month, he said, more than the larger transit system in famously bike-friendly Portland, Ore., Snow said.

The newer buses hold three bicycles on the front rack, and the new ACE buses have three bike hangers inside the vehicle.

The facility is also designed to be as green as possible, with solar panels and water-efficient landscaping. The commission is seeking a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for the building.

Berkley said the facility is an example of how federal money is helping the area in difficult economic times.

“This project is paid for almost exclusively from federal dollars,” she said. “The money that we pay into the federal tax system comes back big time to this community when it comes to transportation projects, and I am very pleased to have been able to help bring some of this money home.”

The facility received $5.5 million in funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and additional money from congressional earmarks and federal grants.

“At a time in this community where we’re having high unemployment and a lot of our construction workers aren’t able to find a job, these shovel-ready projects, which this particular project represents, will mean the difference between thousands of people getting a paycheck and doing a great job for us and thousands that are home idle,” Berkley said.

All of the RTC’s new ACE bus lines, which use larger buses designed to look like train cars, will stop at the new downtown center and utilize the dedicated bus lanes being built on Casino Center Boulevard.

The ACE Gold line will go from the transit center to the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Strip and is expected to begin service next spring.

Also next year, the ACE Express C line will connect downtown to the new Centennial Hills Transit Center.

The RTC also plans an ACE Green line that will eventually go down Boulder Highway to Henderson. Future lines are also planed for Sahara Avenue and Flamingo Road.

The RTC also opened its new bus maintenance facility last week, which will service the new buses and many of the other vehicles in the commission’s fleet.

Discussion: 6 comments so far…

By Krases

8/31/09 at 8:22 p.m.

Suggest removal

ACE-style buses make a lot of sense, its just too bad the dedicated lanes don't run all over town. The dedicated lane keeps them from interrupting regular traffic, but the bus can still peal off the dedicated lane when it needs to. Las Vegas doesn't have the density for a monorail save for maybe the strip and that was cut off at the knees when the monorail wasn't connected to the airport. Whoever decided not to do that either caved to the cab/limo companies or just wasn't thinking very far ahead.

Actually that is why the desert express will likely fail if it does go forward. It will be like the monorail, coming too short of its objective by ending at Victorville instead of LA, for it to be worth many peoples time.

Mass transit, while not directly profitable, can lead to massive economic booms wherever they touch. The national highway system either broke or made towns depending on there proximity to the roadway. The same went for the intercontinental railroad. This sort of reasoning can apply to the city-wide level when diverse forms of transit are offered, especially a timely and effective bus system in pedestrian unfriendly town like Vegas.
By davidcurtis

9/1/09 at 6:35 a.m.

Suggest removal

and the name of the architect is...?
By Det__Munch

9/1/09 at 9:20 a.m.

Suggest removal

this is where the state should spend tht $45 million that ws set aside for the desert express train. The valley residents need a better public transportation system not some overpriced train to nowhwere.
By Det__Munch

9/1/09 at 9:24 a.m.

Suggest removal

I posted before I was finished.

Krases is right about mass transit helping the economy. Instead of pushing again for those tourism dollars coming from the califonrnians hopefully using that express tsrain - a good mass transit system here in Vegas will help sell the area to those who are thinking of moving here which equals to houses being bought and money being spent within the neighborhoods NOT on the Strip. it may even be a positive thing for any companies that might want to locate here. But again - gambling and tourism wins out over common sense.
By avalentiner

9/1/09 at 3:52 p.m.

Suggest removal

...this is what we get instead of a lightrail?

wow thanks alot.
By Krases

9/3/09 at 11:28 p.m.

Suggest removal

Det. Munch

Well I think the high-speed train to LA has a future, but right now it's too early to start working on it and the current plan is simply idiotic (Victorville? Really?). High speed rail is meant to get people from city center to city center with the riders having to only walk or take a short bus ride afterward. From there, downtown Las Vegas can become far more dense by having access to something other than car transit.

However, there can be no DesertExpress until California gets its high speed rail system online in which case Las Vegas can tap into most of California as a means of getting more tourism dollars. I have even read that it (the desert express) is planned to do that by linking into Cali high speed rail at Palmdale. Plus contractors are willing to work for dirt cheap prices, so it might not be a bad idea to take advantage of that for construction.

I predict that the private company running the rail line will go bankrupt before that additional track ever gets laid.