Desert Express

MagLev

Evanston, IL—I stopped in at Northwestern University’s world renowned Transportation Center, where earlier this year, I had given some students my concept of building a rapid-transit system in the Las Vegas valley, and asked them to give me their take when I returned in this week for the Olympics announcement.

I gave them the potential routes, the estimated budget, the estimated passenger load factors, and a deadline to open each leg.  For those readers who may not know, my real profession and expertise is Transportation; politics has been a 30 year hobby-vocation  for me.  I regularly advised my former hometown congressman, Bill Lipinski, on transportation matters when he chaired the House Transportation committee and an annual symposium at the university bear his name today.

The students were very excited and said that yes, the project is very achievable, and could stand out as an even better system than Washington’s Metro, or San Francisco’s BART at build out.

For the billions anticipated to be wasted on MagLev or high-speed rail into southern California, where passengers would be an imperceptible fraction of what a valley-wide rapid transit system would be, the conclusion was unanimous that for the foreseeable future, Las Vegas should re-introduce Los Angeles to Las Vegas traditional Amtrak service.

The students surprised me by agreeing that clearing the right-of-way through southern Nevada to connect to the BNSF from the Needles-Kingman areas, north, into the Eldorado valley, and then on to connect with the UPRR, would be a multi-layered boon to southern Nevada’s economy.  An intermodal rail head and yard in far southern Nevada is a critical necessity to economic development as the UPRR, refuses to revive/expand theirs and southern Nevada businesses are indentured to one railroad with no competition and exorbitant rates, stifling, if not suffocating, economic activity in southern Nevada.

Only one freight rail and one Interstate highway option into southern Nevada has been called the single biggest impediment to economic diversity in Nevada, and I agree with that conclusion.

A public/private partnership to build this new spur line would pay for itself with freight rail fees, and drop freight rail rates into southern Nevada; today, amongst the highest in the nation, and spur the corresponding economic activity needed to sustain the line.  A traditional or even a steel-wheeled, high-speed passenger component would/could also enhance the line, and is achievable because the land is largely unencumbered and very easy to acquire.

Just the excitement of having new options to connect with I-40 and a new rail line spur into Arizona would make the zone the best development opportunity in the nation. Multi-modal transportation infrastructure on a large scale is the key.

Nevada’s next big opportunity lies to the south of Las Vegas and by doing this, would also greatly enhance economic activity on the northern edge of the metro area too. By having two Class A railroad options and two Interstates in close proximity within southern Nevada, the economic activity of warehouse, cold/dry storage, truck and rail repair and maintenance, lighter industrial, manufacturing, and trans-loading, will be the jump start to diversification of the state’s economy.

The Interstate 40 highway and rail corridor is one of the busiest in the nation and southern Nevada has no direct 21^st century connection to either! That’s truly astounding in a global economy dependent on moving goods efficiently; we’re not even a player compared to our neighboring states!

East and west bound road and rail traffic literally goes right by us just a short distance to the south and we’re doing nothing to capture them and the businesses they bring.

The high-speed/Maglev concepts further isolates Nevada by being only tourist-centric in design and concept, leaving fledgling industrial development and their much higher paying jobs to wither in a very difficult region to do business in, because of our exceptionally poor transportation infrastructure.

The fact is, that no matter how exciting any of the high-speed rail proposals might be, neither can ever compete with discount airlines, can only deliver several hundred tourist per trip, and will certainly require subsidy forever, because you can never recover costs from such a small pool of travelers.  There is no self-sustaining rail or MagLev option anywhere in the world; all governments have to subsidize rails, just as they do airports and roads.

Maglev’s proponents claim a $55 ticket price; that’s laughable and dishonest when taxpayer subsidized Acela service on Amtrak ranges from a low of $72 to over $200 per trip. It’s also reasonable to ask why Reno is is being left out when both southern and northern Nevada should be able to easily interline into California’s system with logical routes and identical equipment.

Because high-speed is only tourist-centric, yet again further stifling and further isolating Nevada’s economy, both concepts are being rightly derided as just another ‘Vegas attraction’; another billion dollar boondoggle like the failed monorail here that will do absolutely nothing to assist in economic diversification.

If we can’t achieve an easy-to-do 100 mile passenger/freight spur line to connect Arizona to the Las Vegas Valley, then we’re really not serious about anything.

Let’s build the rail spur into southern Nevada first, and then perhaps we can discuss high-speed rail options further into the future.

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Part Two:

Atlanta’s MARTA Rapid Transit

Miami’s Metrorail Rapid Transit

But the equally great long term need in the Las Vegas valley is rapid transit. The current street level mistakes of paying more than 1 million per CAT MAX/ACE buses is a laughingstock to long-term transit planners nationwide because although perhaps more flexible, those buses are still stuck in Las Vegas’ infamous grade level traffic.  Our viable options are subterranean or elevated rail, or even MagLev rapid transit.

For a variety of reasons, including the hard ground and the great expense of excavation or boring tunnels, the better option was determined to be elevated.  The work for subterranean flood control in the valley also played a role in that would make a subway system all the more difficult to engineer and build. It is regrettable that the rapid transit right-of-way was not also at least planned and set aside at the same time flood control was done here; it would have made things easier when we were ready to build rapid transit.  Conversely, the relative ease of going overhead, likely with a rubber-wheeled system like San Francisco’s BART, presents far less challenges and its construction can employ thousands in southern Nevada for the 20 years for system completion that is estimated.

Where are our unions on this?  Why aren’t our political leaders championing this?  Why aren’t they all on board right now?

Virtually the entire system can be built pre-fab and off-site and assembled mile-by-mile, greatly reducing costs and construction disruptions.  The weather in the valley, new materials, new construction methods and efficiencies, could make our new system the most exciting new transportation project in the Western Hemisphere if approved.

Modeled loosely on what Atlanta and Miami started in the 1970’s when their populations almost directly mimicked what is happening in southern Nevada today; those cities, not without controversy, embarked on building systems that are today, heavily used, expandable, and a boon to their diverse economies. Studies have looked back on how crippled and stifled both regions would be today had they not taken these rapid transit public works projects to fruition.

Rapid Transit has proven to be the economic catalyst that saved billions in productivity and commuting costs, while taking hundreds of thousands of single-rider car trips off of their respective roads each year.  Businesses, naturally wanted to be near the lines for their employees use and to expand their own labor pools.

In Chicago, they extended two rapid transit lines to both of their airports, and the economic activity near each station exploded and far exceeded all projections, and didn’t require a penny of taxpayer money; the private sector wanted to be nearby, and today, even in a down economy, not a single empty storefront or shuttered plant neighbors either new line station.

Building rapid transit proved to be the economic ignition necessary to diversify Atlanta and Miami’s economies and make their cities more livable and viable. They are now both international gateways today because they did comprehensive transportation infrastructure, instead of piecemeal like the RTC does here.

In southern Nevada, the RTC contracts its CAT bus system to Paris-based Veolia and guarantees them 1 billion+ per year, and they in turn deliver the worst ground transportation system in the country. Breakdowns, sporadic service, surly drivers, fare increases, and service cuts, all conspire to deliver our worst in the nation local bus service.

When businesses look to relocate or to expand, transportation infrastructure is always a top consideration; always. Today, Las Vegas’ infrastructure is exceptionally poor, and decades behind other metropolitan areas, and even neighboring states; again, a major reason our economy has not diversified and why California-based businesses refuse to move here, despite our favorable tax climate.

If you can’t move your employees to and from work efficiently, and you can’t move goods economically, you can’t make money; it’s just that simple. We’ve only had a countywide bus system here for about two decades, and the people at the RTC are still stubbornly fixated on the Strip and ACE buses, rather than moving the now 2 million people who migrated here over the last 20+ years.

Even on the Strip, the new ACE buses will not have their own dedicated lanes, completely nullifying any efficiency that is supposed to occur. They are essentially million dollar a piece, pretty painted wagons for tourists that do nothing to improve transportation efficiencies in the Las Vegas valley.

Those thousands of Strip employees are slaves to their cars because of this too; they can never depend on CAT in the most congested segment of the valley. Incredibly, the RTC doesn’t even have employee/locals only shuttle service to get resort corridor employees to work dependably and on time.

This tells us all how out-of-step and completely removed from reality the RTC is regarding transportation planning.

The RTC’s incompetence and inability to look far into the future on transportation matters, has them also stuck in a ribbons of concrete and asphalt mindset too.  Yes, our roads are terrible too and need vast expansion and improvement, but you also have to have other options as the valley is expected to top out at about 5 million people.

Simply put, you can’t move 5 million people on roadways alone.

We’re still tourist-centric, rather than metropolitan area infrastructure driven. A Henderson to Centennial bus trip will set you back more than 2.5 hours! Today in southern Nevada, the average 2 bus connection ride takes 97 minutes, whereas a bus system, hub and spoked to rapid transit rail stations, would cut that time by more than half, and on some trips, by almost 2/3’s.

This being Nevada, in order for such a new rapid transit system to become politically palatable, the entire congressional delegation and the state’s entire business community has to be on board, something both Atlanta and Miami achieved. There also has to be something for northern Nevada, and a light-rail system between Carson City and Reno could easily be included in the plans. Realistically, a 2 cent per gallon fuel tax increase solely dedicated to these projects in the counties involved, is also necessary to pay for bond servicing and system operations.

Our reliance on sales tax subsidies for public transportation is not sustainable.  All forms of transportation should pay for all forms of transportation, and nothing else.

Representative Shelley Berkley, when she sat on the House Transportation committee couldn’t have been less interested in Nevada’s future, now Representative Dina Titus is also disinterested, if not hostile, to something that could ignite her own congressional district’s economy with the Arizona rail spur, the new mega-intermodal rail facility and rapid transit into her district.  Neither senator cares; no one in political leadership has ever cared about the very basic foundation to any economic activity; comprehensive transportation infrastructure.

Can we find a way to create a public/private corporation to build and run Las Vegas Rapid Transit instead of wasting time and money on a poorly used, high-speed interstate rail concept?  Yes, of course we can!

So when you hear our leaders complaining or wringing their hands about lack of economic diversity, ask them why transportation infrastructure is such a low priority here—you can’t have one without the other—and ask them why they jump on rails to nowhere projects instead of laying the infrastructure foundations necessary to make the state a viable place to do business.

Then you’ll find the answer to why Nevada is number two in unemployment, at the top of all of the bad lists, why Arizona, Utah, and Oregon do far better at attracting businesses, and why we will never be more than we are today because of such political myopia.

Our neighbors get it, Nevada does not.

And ask Atlanta and Miami if they made the right decisions.

Clearly, resoundingly, they did, and to date, we have not.

Mike Zahara
10022009
www.WatchDogWag.com