J. Squire wrote on July 03, 2008 09:53 PM: What a waste of time and taxpayer money! One only needs to look at a similar project in Oregon - Newburg to Dundee. The private side of the partenership pulled out when the economics did not pencil out due to study after study indicating nealy all would avoid the toll road. The taxpayers are stuck with unrecoverable millions of dollars for all the engineering study costs and Environmental Impact Study costs.

Rail, give me a break, light rail will cost billions and never goes anywhere without a track, it will be subsidized by all every year of operation. Again just check out Oregon's light rail in Portland, millions and billions spent and now an ever increasing crime problem.

Sounds like the ever reliant Bus that can easily modify its route to address the changing LV Valey population growth might have finally met its time.

LV Toll Road = low ridership + $2 billion + huge right of way take

LV Light Rail = low ridership + $2 billion + huge right of way take

LV buses = low to moderate ridership + about $400K/ bus and no right of way take.

bob wrote on July 03, 2008 04:55 PM: But a rail system would benefit everyone - there would be less traffic!

yimby wrote on July 03, 2008 04:49 PM: Vegas is fairly centralized compared to many cities with light rail. There are at least a couple hundred thousand workers on the Strip. I'm sure that is more than downtown Salt Lake, Portland, San Diego, Phoenix (probably the most sprawled out decentralized city in the country), I could go on and on. There are many streets in Vegas that would have high ridership. People here are just to cheap to pay for anything that would benefit the city as a whole because it might not benefit them personally.

Anthony wrote on July 03, 2008 04:22 PM: Light rail is extremely expensive. Don't get me wrong, I would like it, but the cost is just unrealistic.

I still a point to point park and ride system will work. Learn from Southwest airlines! Find the routes that people want to travel on the most and string them together.

Partner with neighborhood casinos to setup park&ride areas in their parking lots. Busses travel to downtown & the strip directly from the park and ride lots. Make the bus route have very few stops - for example, the bus from the west side starts at Red Rock Resort, then to Suncoast, then down to Arizona Charlies, and finally onto the final destination (ether downtown, north strip, middle strip, or south strip). Very few stops, with most of the stops at the end of the route to drop people off at their destination. Busses could continue on from their primary destinations to other ancillary destinations, like the medical district on Maryland Parkway, UNLV, the airport & the industrial district around it, etc.

Instead of replacing a 30 minute drive with 2-3 hour and 2-transfer commute with CAT, you get a 1 hour commute with no transfers. Still faster than CAT, and you don't have to drive (you could read the RJ).

The problem with this (and mass transit in general) is that Las Vegas lacks the worker/sq mile concentration that mass transit requires to be really successful. Its changing as the "Manhattaization" continues and you get taller, bigger office buildings. The only places that have the necessary density for mass transit is the strip and downtown.

vegas is a joke wrote on July 03, 2008 04:18 PM: There are cities half the size of Vegas with great light rail systems. Vegas is a joke when it come to transportation and every one knows it - except our so called leaders it seems. All we have is a half a$$ed failed monorail for tourists. We need to vote these losers out of office. And if you think more highway lanes will fix the problem you're wrong. We need mass transit for the 2 million residents of Vegas!!

Geoff wrote on July 03, 2008 03:31 PM: For the perfect lightrail system visit Vancouver, BC, Canada. Their skytrain runs fast, looks great, runs quietly, and trouble free to all the communities with no ugly powerlines above, no drivers, and no ticket agents (honor system). Works great though. Everyone uses it, not just the poor/crime (like where i live now in Los Angeles).

RANDY wrote on July 03, 2008 03:30 PM: TOLL ROADS ARE ILLEGAL IN NEVADA FOR A REASON. THEY DON'T SERVE THE PEOPLE WHO MUST COMMUTE TO AND FROM WORK EVERY DAY IN THAT AREA. IT MUST BE SOMEONE FROM CALIFORNIA WHO CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA. HOV LANES IS ANOTHER BAD IDEA. LET'S FACE IT, OUR LEADERS LET THESE DEVELOPERS COME INTO CLARK COUNTY AND BUILD HOUSING TRACKS WITH NO GOOD ROADS TO TRAVEL ON. IF WE WOULD REQUIRE THESE DEVELOPERS TO INVEST INTO ROADS AND HIGHWAYS BEFORE THEY BUILD 10 THOUSAND HOMES IN A SUB-DIVISION WE WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM. IF WE WOULD ONLY ALLOW 4 HOUSES PER ACRE INSTEAD OF 8, WE WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM. TO FIX THIS PROBLEM, WE NEED TO BUILD MORE ROADS. THE CAT BUS IS A JOKE. THE RTC IS A JOKE. LIGHT RAIL WILL NOT WORK IN CLARK COUNTY IF IT ONLY GOES UP AND DOWN THE STRIP.

Held Up At Gunpoint wrote on July 03, 2008 03:25 PM: The widening of the 95 Ran over budget and overdue because the Sierra Club did not want the road to be as wide as proposed.

This tells me that this strecth of highway will not get any wider than it already is, which means to me that each toll lane will result in one less travel lane, thus making traffic even more congested than it already is. Not only that, but as it has already been stated we already paid for the lanes that they are now proposing to hand over to a private group. And get this the private group is going to charge us to use what we have already paid for.

research wrote on July 03, 2008 03:20 PM: I find it funny how some people are all on board with light rail now in Las Vegas. It was only two years ago when the RTC proposed a rapid transit system (light rail was considered)connecting North Las Vegas to the strip and on to Henderson. You had all the NIMBY's come out against the system with their "government boondoggle words."

Keep in mind things cost money. Light rail cost roughly $35 million a mile to build. Every public transportation system is subsidized and doesn't make money. Therefore tax money is needed. Even the most successful systems like Portland and Salt Lake City are subsidized. All things cost money and not everyone is willing to pay for something they'd never use, even if they would benefit from a few cars less on the road ways.

New York is bad example to compare transit systems. It's more than 100 years old. Besides that out west we have a different way of thinking even the BART system in San Francisco was planned for 20 years before anyone set foot on it.

If you want a closer example look at the Phoenix Metro system. They are building it one leg at a time connecting different parts of the city and it's first leg connecting Tempe to downtown Phoenix will open this fall.

Once again do a little research everything cost money. Look at the RTC's Web site to see the new ACE system, looks like a train on wheels and travels in a dedicated lane out of traffic at a much lower price. The plan is to have it expand all over the valley, but it takes time and money.

Ugly American wrote on July 03, 2008 03:11 PM: They're selling us out again.

Once they got these in the EU they kept raising the prices and all the money goes to a bunch of rich scumbags instead of the transportation fund.

If it's so fair, then can I own the road around the Nevada Transportation Board's houses and charge THEM everytime they need to leave the house? If not, why?

Maybe we should vote to have the government steal, I mean appropriate their houses and then force them to lease them back from us?

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