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StumbleTransportation expert says Las Vegas could become crossroads of West
LEFT: A model of a proposed Victorville station for the DesertXpress high-speed rail project is shown. RIGHT: Motorists navigate rush hour traffic on Interstate 15 near the Strip. (Las Vegas Sun file photos)
Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Tom Skancke, who envisions high-speed rail being built in Las Vegas, stands at the Interstate 215 underpass at Decatur Boulevard.
Sun coverage
Las Vegas could become the crossroads of the West with a new Interstate 15 corridor study, a proposed Interstate 11 and planned connections to a high-speed rail network, a transportation expert said on Tuesday.
Tom Skancke, president of The Skancke Co. Ltd., told the Nevada Contractors Association at a lunch meeting that there are challenges in developing transportation infrastructure, including how to pay for it, but the potential reward is economic diversification for the region.
“This is probably the most important critical issue to our nation’s long-term economic sustainability,” Skancke told about 100 association members gathered at the Rio.
Skancke said the Nevada Department of Transportation recently awarded an I-15 corridor study. A similar project was undertaken for Interstate 95 from Florida to Maine. The purpose of the study is to develop expansion and improvement strategies for the length of the highway.
The study will include I-15 from San Diego to Salt Lake City. Skancke said Idaho and Montana did not opt to participate.
Skancke said a section of I-15 in Southern California illustrates why communities along the highway need to work together.
“When the I-15-Interstate 215 intersection in San Bernardino County fails, the whole system fails,” he said.
He said the intersection was designed in 1958 to carry 15,000 vehicle trips a day. Today, the intersection handles 122,000 truck trips alone, serves 65,000 residents of Victorville on their trips to the Los Angeles basin and is a conduit for about 11 million visitors a year to Southern Nevada.
“It is the most significant intersection in all of the West,” Skancke said. “In the past, we have looked at (the cities along I-15) as competition. Today, we need to look at them as complementing us as partners.”
Another highway transportation project that would affect Las Vegas’ future is a proposal to upgrade U.S. 93 and U.S. 95 to interstate highway standards. The proposed I-11 would run from Phoenix to Seattle, and I-15 would become an important intersection.
The proposal takes on added importance with China’s emergence as the world’s dominant economic power.
China has invested in deep-water ports at Punta Colonet, Baja California, and Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, to import goods to North and Central America. Southern California ports can’t accommodate most of the new supercargo ships, Skancke said.
A third infrastructure component is high-speed rail.
Skancke was one of the engineers of the Western High Speed Rail Alliance, which includes transportation organizations in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and Reno.
He said the alliance is working as a single entity to develop a high-speed rail network and apply for funding for the West. Intermountain western states were shut out when the federal government doled out $8 billion in high-speed rail stimulus funds.
Skancke said the alliance avoided being involved with California’s high-speed system because it didn’t want to get entangled in the state’s political issues. But the alliance has done more in one year than backers of the Pacific Northwest’s proposed Cascadia high-speed system between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Eugene, Ore., has done in 20 years, he said.
While Las Vegas has the potential of becoming a center of transportation in the West, Skancke said, there are huge obstacles to overcome. The largest may be changing the planning mindset, a major cultural shift.
“Our problem is that we react; we don’t plan,” Skancke said. “We’re really good at crises and wars. We’ve got those two things down pat. But if we don’t declare war on this transportation crisis, we won’t have anything to react to. It’s that serious. Someone needs to stand up and say, ‘Here’s the vision for the future of our country.’”
At the root of the issue is money, and Skancke said the nation needs a long-term stable funding source.
He proposes an increase to the fuel tax, the implementation of congestion management and tolling, and a study on implementing a vehicle-miles-traveled use fee.
Skancke said increasing the fuel tax by 3 cents a gallon would generate more than $200 billion a year.
“We need about $225 billion a year on the low end just to sustain the current system,” Skancke said.
Experts have talked about congestion management and tolling, but Skancke acknowledged that “it just never gets there.”
Congestion management and tolling have been proposed as private-sector investments in highway systems.
Congestion management involves charging motorists a fee to use special lanes when traffic is heavy. Tolls generate revenue from any motorist choosing to use a toll highway.
Vehicle-miles-traveled use fees, or VMTs, are a fix for the inevitable wave of issues that will arise as more motorists shift to energy-saving electric vehicles.
Skancke believes that state and federal governments need to think ahead about the impact electric vehicles will have on gasoline-tax revenue.
“Somebody has to champion a VMT,” Skancke said. “Without it, we have no way of sustaining our highway trust fund.”
Skancke said the National Car Rental chain intends to purchase 500 electric vehicles and station 100 of them in Las Vegas.
“To my knowledge, there are only four places to plug in a car in Las Vegas, and all of them are at CityCenter,” he said. “If companies like National are going to start plopping these vehicles into cities, the reality is that we should start capturing that fuel tax.”
Discussion: 5 comments so far…
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Whole ideal is brainwash to tax Americans more and regulate our driving - then ofcourse he threw in the added jack over Americans for big business plug in that we are somehow to belive that Mexico can better handle cargo ships so we should develop that route better so China and Corporate world can exploit cheep labor..
all at the expense of the American driver
brilliant !
This is just what America needs, another failed railway system like Amtrak! If the US government can get Amtrak to be profitable, then go for it.
Our country would be much better off if we choked down the flow of cheaply made imported goods from China that arrive at our nations ports and are than transported along our nations highways such as I-15 through Las Vegas.
And the Author of this article wants to make it easier than it already is for China to flood our markets with cheap foreign goods..
Whose side is this guy on anyway ?
<This is just what America needs, another failed railway system like Amtrak>
Amtrak is NOT a failed railway system. In fact, Amtrak does quite well and is planning more routes.
ok,let me get this right,the money that paid for the freeways was all treasury money that we all no doubt some how contributed to.now this guy wants us to pay extra to travel in "special" lanes on the same freeway that we've already paid for if the traffics "to heavy" on the other lanes.BRILLIANT
"Amtrak is NOT a failed railway system. In fact, Amtrak does quite well and is planning more routes."
Amtrak IS a failed railway system. Without taxpayer subsidies it would be dissolved. If it was doing quite well it would not require ANY taxpayer funds.
Amtrak Facts:
Created by Congress in 1971 to provide intercity train travel, Amtrak has never recorded a profit while receiving more than $40 billion in federal funding since its inception. In 1997, under pressure from the Clinton administration and Republicans in Congress, Amtrak promised to pay its own bills by 2003 through cost cutting and introduction of the Acela.
Amtrak never met that deadline, and its executives have had to ask for government subsidies every year since then.
Yep, it does well as long as Taxpayers keep throwing money at it.
Transportation Experts? are you kidding.... They must live in Colorado or something because they sure don't live here in Vegas...
"Skancke was one of the engineers of the Western High Speed Rail Alliance, which includes transportation organizations in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and Reno".
"He said the alliance is working as a single entity to develop a high-speed rail network and apply for funding for the West. Intermountain western states were shut out when the federal government doled out $8 billion in high-speed rail stimulus funds".
So this Skancke guy is trying to get his hands on taxpayer dollars. Maybe he doesn't know that this would require a large contributuin to the Reid campaign and an even larger donation on the side to Reid. You gotta pay to play!
Just build the rails, extend the monorail, add a couple stadiums.
I'm tired of all these na-sayers. Move to Boulder City if you don't want anything to change.
I laugh at those who complain about Amtrak subsidies. The roads and highways you drive on are all subsidized by tax payers - and they never turn a profit! They just didn't appear there by some magical road fairy. When was the last time people expected roads to make a profit? Completely a double standard.
I don't think HSR will work simply because there are too many NIMBYs. Someone doesn't want to live near the HSR and they'll sue and protract the process for 10 years in court. This is why the Chinese can do HSR and the US cant, because we have things like Due Process. The communist government comes in and says, "we're taking your land, here is some money, now get out," and that's the end of it. No appeals, no court battles.
I-11 is desperately needed. If Reid wanted to give his poll numbers a bit of a boost, he'd get Obama to earmark $2B of that $50B he is planning on spending on infrastructure funding to complete the first leg of I-11 - between I-15 and I-40 in Kingman. Its $1B to fix US-95 from I-15 to Horizon Ridge (maybe less now since land prices have fallen so much and there was significant ROW costs on that project), $350M from RR Pass to the new Dam Bypass, and another $250M for the interchange with I-40 in Kingman. Tout it as the first new American highway designation in 25 years (since the mid-80s I believe; doesn't count extensions, loops, spur lines, etc).
Of course Idaho and Montana chose not to opt. People up there are against growth,crime,drugs,illegals, etc. Bravo to them..
Skancke is a little ahead of the facts when he says "China has invested in deep-water ports at Punta Colonet..." The mega-port at Punta Colonet, Mexico, is still on the drawing boards, although the contracting process is supposed to begin this month (after years of delay). And China's giant ports operator Hutchinson Port Holdings has certainly said it's interested in bidding. More details on the mega-port, updated regularly, are at http://puntacolonetmega-port.blogspot.co....
Anyone here have any sense or understanding of history? The Interstate highway system was set up to aid in national defense by President Eisenhower (the cynics and conspiracy theorists will say it was set up to aid in the movement of troops against Americans...)
Anyway, if this plan comes to fruition, consider setting up a physically delineated Autobahn lane restricted to those with self-initiated and self-financed continuing driver education, then charge $10-$20 each way between LV and LA, LV and PHX. When people can drive safely between these places at 100 MPH, there will be many positive impacts to all communities involved.
gbigs: You are so wrong on so many levels. Why don't you move from under that bridge you're living at to another town.
I like RPJ's idea. Autobahns are excellent highways... I've driven them - smooth, clean, fast and safer than our highways.
The only problem I see is our poorly maintained cars here in our country may not be able to handle the 100+ mph speeds that are common in Germany.
summerof69 have you been to idaho? Who do you think picks the potatoes?
"(Skancke said.) "We're really good at crises and wars. We've got those two things down pat."
Oh right.... Katrina, Iraq, Al Queda, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on _____ (fill in the blank) -- those have all been such stellar examples of how good we are, right?
Talk about needing a cultural and cerebral enema to rid this country of its "war and crisis" mentality... only the wealthy prosper during wars and crises and thus the mentality continues; just ask Bush, Cheney, and Rove. They raped this country and Iraq; allowed their buds on Wall Street to go crazy with greed and lawlessness, and set into motion the situation we are facing now.
Where's the oil crisis? The price went up, the oil flows...but they said we would run out by now, remember? I guess that crisis was as true as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Now we have the financial crisis; the housing crisis; the economic crisis; the crisis du jour! All the while the fat cats are still counting their money made from the previous "crises."
The BILLIONS OF DOLLARS spent in Iraq alone, (not to mention the human LIVES destroyed) would have built a first class transportation system, educational system, or "you name it" for this country. But, how boring?
No one can score BIG MONEY on such domestic trivia when there is BIG MONEY to be made in oil, war contracts, (can you say Haliburton?) and the like.
It's always the same old song and dance. Americans have been exploited to make the elite wealthier. When Americans try to stand up against them, what do they do?? They move the jobs overseas where labor is cheaper. They find ways to exaserbate global hotspots for profit. They buy the votes they need to push their war and crises mentality and their profit at ANY COST (human life included) agenda.
Get a clue. Progress? You see what happens when a domestic agenda is being attempted. It's only viable and acceptable if the elite class can make huge profits from it...and guess what? That typically won't happen with a roads project, an educational overhaul, or the like. Too boring, and does not offer huge windfalls for anyone, except the working class and children. If there was a way to EXPLOIT these projects for HUGE profitability, they would SAIL through congress like an Iraqi war!
ok, I know some of you are chomping at the keyboards, ready to give me what for...so have at it!
Lobo: Actually, potatoes aren't picked. They are harvested, by machine....
Sorry, gbigs, but I'd much rather pilot my Autobahn-burner to SoCal in 2.5 hours than waste more time on a flight.
Your comments repeatedly demonstrate not only willful ignorance (have you ever heard of 4-hour delays between here and LA because of all those driving in or back?), but also open hostility toward Las Vegas.
You are an easy read, dude.
Good comments, rwith. Part of the fees associated with an Autobahn lane would be to fund vehicle safety inspections and stickers for those who wish to drive the lanes. Advanced driver training + properly maintained vehicles + proper high-speed lanes + enforcement of left-lane yield laws = 2.5 hours to LA.
A railway to Victorville is about as good as our monorail that doesnt go to our airport! It is a money losing system, now we'll have 2. Good thinkin'! Victorville...lol!
If Skancke is serious about connecting LV to Mexican deep-water ports, then the entities he should be talking to aren't NDOT and the feds, but the Union Pacific and BNSF Railroads. Long-haul trucks can't compete with the efficiency of America's freight railroad system, which unlike Amtrak is the (highly profitable!) envy of the entire world.
Any regional transportation plan which involves building an I-11, and doesn't involve major freight rail upgrades and/or new connections, cannot be taken seriously. Anyone involved in putting forward such a plan is either disingenuous, deeply ignorant, or both.
One last point: If the Western HSR Alliance has been more successful than the Cascades Corridor, please inform us where, exactly, between Sacramento and Saint Louis, one can find service on a par with or surpassing the Amtrak Cascades 5 daily roundtrips between Portland and Seattle? I would be interested in hearing the answer.
Let me see if I have this straight...
We are going to borrow money from China to finance roads in America so that the Chinese can transport their goods through Mexico to American markets.
Why don't the Chinese pay for the roads?
Better yet why don't we just tell the Chinese to keep their goods in China, we can leave our roads alone and instead of paying additional taxes we can spend more, buy American and put some people back to work.
The best solution, though initially somewhat painful, is to recognize the truth about Las Vegas. The city represents the worst in the human condition - greed, envy, pride, Godlessness. The city, sucking unsustainable amounts of water from the Colorado, should be razed and all the residents relocated to more viable locations. And let's face it, most of the residents in Las Vegas are there not be choice. They're stuck. The initial financial cost would be about the same as the study and transportation infrastructure, however the savings realized after about 8 - 10 years would be substantial and allow worthy metro areas to improve their roads, highways, bridges, schools, etc. Now, I realize this is a potentially controversial idea, but before jumping into hysterics, give it some thought.
Tom Skancke is smoking something if he thinks Wars are successful. Hell has he ever heard of the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty? Yep course if your goal is to create government sucking enterprise, they are wildly successful.
What we need is Maglev trains, Electric Cars which actually go 300 miles and have interchangeable battery packs like they have in Sweden, we need to invest in fiber optic internet lines and wireless networks which are not controlled by 2-3 mega corps.
These people like Tom Skancke are not interested in doing anything beyond sucking more money from broke taxpayers. It is all hot air. All about sustaining horribly outdated wasteful systems which we simply do not need.
gbigs, sorry but you haven't got a clue about transportation, taxation, finance, Las Vegas, or the rest of the Southwest in general! AMTRAK is a failure because it is not HSR. Had AMTRAK been HSR they would not have had to cancel the Los Angeles to Salt Lake City through Las Vegas route. There would have been enough ridership they would have been able to run multiple trips from Los Angeles to Salt Lake on a daily basis.