Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Policy detour: Las Vegas advocating curbs on mandate to create bike lanes

A new policy being considered by the members of the Regional Transportation Commission would make it easier for local governments to avoid building bicycle lanes.

The RTC -- the transportation and transit planning coordinator for Clark County -- has a policy that requires the county and cities to add bike lanes when resurfacing or repaving roads. The local governments can request waivers when the roadway isn't wide enough to accommodate the extra lanes, but the waivers require public notification.

That often brings out the bicycling community to object. Under the proposal, which was tabled for further discussion Thursday by the RTC's Executive Advisory Committee, the county and cities could get a waiver without a public hearing.

The proposal comes in a year when six bicyclists have been killed in traffic accidents, according to Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. That is double the number of bicycle fatalities during the same period last year, she said.

The change is opposed by RTC staff members, who have backed bicycles as an alternative to cars; the local Sierra Club, the environmental organization; and bicyclists including the Las Vegas Valley Bicycle Club.

The proponent of the change is Las Vegas, according to RTC officials. The city is concerned that it may need such a waiver for work on Industrial Road, which Las Vegas Public Works officials say is too narrow to support a bike lane.

Richard Goecke, Las Vegas public works director, said the delay gives all interested parties "an opportunity for more thorough discussion."

He said the proposal, which would have to be approved by the full RTC board, does not represent a retreat from a commitment to bicycles by the city of Las Vegas.

"We're working on several bike corridors right now," Goecke said. "We would make every effort to accommodate all these alternative modes of transportation regardless of what the procedure is."

Breen said the proposal contradicts a recent Alternate Mode of Transportation study, which suggested ways to encourage people to commute in ways other than their cars. The city of Las Vegas and other member agencies of the RTC participated in that study, she noted.

"The sad thing is to have member agencies give you lip service, and when it comes to implementing a program they do an about-face," she said.

Las Vegas isn't the only place in the valley where dedicated bicycle lanes could change.

In Henderson city staff members are recommending that a dedicated bicycle lane on a roughly two-mile stretch of Warm Springs Road be turned into a shared vehicle/bicycle lane.

That recommendation is being strongly opposed by a group of neighbors who say the dedicated bicycle lane provides more safety for bicyclists and pedestrians than a shared lane would on that part of Warm Springs between Pecos and Arroyo Grande.

Public meetings on the proposal are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Sept. 24, and the staff recommendation and public comments on the proposal are expected to go to the Henderson City Council in October.

Breen said bike lanes are important. They "teach a motorist to expect to see a bicyclist. We don't have that in Las Vegas."

They also help bicyclists ride more safely, she said.

"Bicyclists do stupid things too -- ride on the sidewalk and then out into traffic -- but they do that because there's not a safe place for them to ride," Breen said.

Jane Feldman, a Sierra Club activist, said the potential policy change is just one effort that various cities are making that, overall, endanger hard-won gains made by the bicycling community.

"I don't understand why there is a need to revise the process when the process already accommodates changes and exceptions to the standards," Feldman said in a letter to the RTC.

The existing RTC policy has made it harder for the local governments to ignore the needs of the biking community and a change would reverse that, she said.

"It's one more indication that people just want to whittle it to death," Feldman said.

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said his staff is concerned about the policy shift, and he personally is a bicycle user. He added, however, that not all roads are appropriate for bicycle lanes.

"From a policy standpoint, I don't think it makes sense ... to have to take away active lanes of travel" to comply with the policy, Snow said.

"We have to find a balance," he said.

Snow noted that the RTC, whatever the policy, will continue to back bicycles as a way of getting around. He noted that the RTC's Citizen Area Transit public bus system carries 45,000 bikes a week, more than bike-friendly towns such as Portland, Ore.

Snow said last year's passage of Question 10, which provides $2.7 billion over the next two decades for transportation improvements, could provide some solutions for both bike lovers and public works departments.

The tax measure provides $125 million for bicycle lane improvements, both on and off streets. Snow told the Executive Advisory Committee, made up of public works officials from across the region, that the dollars could go to purchasing rights-of-way to provide space for both cars and bikes.

The committee has rescheduled discussion on the possible bike lane policy change for Sept. 25. Before then, RTC members and public works officials plan to hold meetings with the biking and environmental activists to discuss the change.

Ed Thiessen, a board member of the Las Vegas Valley Bicycle Club and a member of several other local bicycling organizations, said he doesn't want to see the policy changed.

He said the RTC's policy has helped make the valley a much more amenable place for bicycles than it was a decade ago and there should not be any backpedaling on the requirements, especially the ones that force the matter to be discussed in a public forum.

"If there isn't some public process, it leaves room for all kinds of problems," he said. We don't have that in Las Vegas."

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