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The two-pronged challenge of getting visitors from McCarran International Airport to the Strip more quickly while not worsening the already-crowded boulevard can be easily, speedily and affordably solved. The answer is not a $200 million, 4-mile elevated expressway, as some Clark County commissioners are proposing. The expressway would dump still more vehicles on the Strip, which is the last thing anyone wants.
The answer is to construct a light-rail transit system, which can be painlessly paid for with local funding, can be completed about as quickly as the highway in the sky, and would reduce, not increase, Strip traffic.
One of the arguments in favor of an elevated expressway is that the $200 million generated by the room tax to relieve traffic congestion along the Strip cannot be used for light rail. That’s simply not true. It can be used for light rail.
Even if that $200 million were off-limits to light-rail development, there are better uses for it in reducing congestion than constructing an elevated expressway.
Drafts of the RTC’s Transportation Investment Business Plan include various ways to improve key intersections in the tourist corridor. One such plan that has survived multiple drafts of the RTC’s transportation blueprint would eliminate two bottlenecks north of the airport along Tropicana Avenue.
The Tropicana intersection redesign, submitted by the consulting firm CH2M, would take the left three lanes below the surface on northbound Swenson before they would re-emerge west of the Tropicana and Paradise Road intersection. That below-grade path allows a car heading from the airport to the Strip on Tropicana to avoid all traffic lights until the intersection at Koval Lane, only a half-mile east of Las Vegas Boulevard.
This roadway alteration would cost an estimated $35 million to $40 million, a fraction of the cost of the proposed elevated system favored by the Clark County engineering staff. This is a sensible, practical, immediate and cost-effective solution ignored by the county as its leaders hark back to the 1960s’ sky highways instead of looking to a smarter future.
But now assume — correctly — that the $200 million from tourist taxes can be applied to any transportation improvement that relieves congestion in the resort corridor, including rail projects. Can we build a rail link between the airport and Strip for $200 million? The answer is no, but it would pay for half of one, and the rest of the money needed to finish the job can be obtained.
Here’s how: First, build light rail between the airport and the tourist corridor. The rail would connect McCarran International Airport at one end with the Stratosphere hotel at the other end, inside the Las Vegas city limits. The route would run at grade north up Swenson, then west along Tropicana, and proceed north on Las Vegas Boulevard. The line would run about 5.5 miles, passing nearly every resort on the Strip. In the spirit of collaboration, the resorts — which would reap the many benefits of tourists and convention-goers discovering the ease of traveling along the Strip — would make private improvements around transit stations. Imagine fresh streetscapes, promenades and open greenspace such as the Park alongside New York-New York enhancing the Strip’s growing urban sophistication.
How much would rail cost? Light rail at street grade runs about $75 million per mile. Thus, a line running 5.5 miles long costs $400 million.
Who pays for the rail? The biggest share would come from the resort industry, which already has generated $200 million in transportation-targeted tourist taxes now in Clark County accounts. Due to the intense transit demand between the airport and the Strip, RTC projects ridership revenue will eclipse operating costs. That handsome surplus will provide leverage for long-term bonds, adding $100 million. RTC would allocate the final $100 million from its capital fund.
How quickly can we build rail? This project could be designed, funded and finished by 2020 — fast-tracked thanks to the use of all local money. That is about the projected time it would take the proposed airport-to-Strip elevated expressway to open.
Finally, the day that Las Vegas approves the 5.5-mile light-rail project, the RTC should pursue federal money via a New Starts transit grant to extend the system to downtown Las Vegas.
By every environmental and fiscal measure — reduced traffic congestion, less air pollution and cost over time — a light-rail system down the Strip should make more sense to everyone but cab drivers. And it would certainly be more tourist-friendly, allowing them to comfortably sightsee along the Strip versus losing their wits on a raised highway congested with madcap motorists. The light rail would itself become an attraction, not to mention provide convenient access for locals and visitors alike heading to big events at T-Mobile Arena and other venues, or simply enjoying an easy off-and-on casino crawl down the Strip.
Along with the immediate benefits of light rail is that, unlike the elevated expressways that have fallen in disfavor elsewhere for all their flaws, an efficient trolley-like system down the Strip would significantly enhance our appeal in the very competitive convention business that we have come to rely on.
And unlike an elevated expressway, a light-rail line would launch a modern, enduring transportation system in the valley. No Clark County commissioner will ever say, as Larry Brown recently did in referring to the elevated expressway, “And in 20 years, if we have to take it down, so be it …”
If a city tears down after 20 years infrastructure that was designed to last 40-plus years, the effective project cost doubles. And that does not include the actual cost of removing a mammoth urban expressway. For confirmation, look to cities across North America now spending billions of dollars removing elevated expressways.
That Commissioner Brown denies the existence of what urban planners describe as the “teardown movement,” yet talks of tearing down an elevated expressway before it is even built, shows the flaws of that antiquated vision.
If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right. There’s too much at stake for a regrettable misstep into our future.
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