Officials laud transit center, buses as ‘close' to light rail

Las Vegas and Clark County officials joined the Regional Transportation Commission in breaking ground this morning for a new $11 million transit center in the northwest valley.

The Centennial Hills Transit Center will include about 900 parking spaces, passenger drop-off areas, bike storage and an air-conditioned building for passengers to wait for buses.

“It’s really designed to be a ‘multi-mobile’ facility,” said General Manager Jacob Snow.

The commission hopes the facility at U.S. 95 and Durango Drive will encourage people to take public transportation, to carpool or to participate in other ride-sharing programs.

“It will go a long way toward making (mass) transit a more viable option for those in the northwest,” said Councilman Steve Ross.

The facility, which is scheduled to open in January 2010, is partially funded with $8.8 million in federal money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

It will also be one end of a new bus line -- the ACExpress C line -- that will take advantage of HOV lanes on U.S. 95 to travel to downtown Las Vegas, then continue to the Strip and UNLV.

The new bus line is one part of the commission’s plan to connect distant parts of the valley with downtown and the resort corridor.

Future lines are planned for Las Vegas Boulevard, Boulder Highway, Sahara Avenue and Flamingo Road.

The bus lines are designed to imitate light rail systems used in other cities.

Many parts of the route have dedicated bus-only lanes and the buses will stop at raised platform stations, where passengers will buy tickets before boarding.

“We’ve had a lot of discussion in this valley about light rail. This is the closest thing we can bring for the cost of a bus,” Snow said. “It is really a train-on-tires concept. It’s designed around the light rail concept. It looks like it’s a train.”

Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, who also serves as the chair of the transportation commission, said the new diesel-electric hybrid buses are something people have asked for.

He said the upgraded bus system will lead those who travel by car “to make that conscious decision to at least try the system -- and that’s what we need.”

“They’re going to look and see it’s the newest equipment,” Brown said. “We have to make it convenient. We have to make it safe. We have to make it reliable.”

A ride on the new buses from Centennial Hills to the new downtown transit station is expected to take about 18 minutes and will cost $1.75, Snow said. Currently, it take more than an hour to travel the same distance on public transportation, Snow said.

Brown said the so called “rubber-tire rapid transit” is a way to incrementally build up a mass-transit system in the area.

“We’re building this foundation for a successful transit system valley-wide,” he said. “But we can’t overnight turn on a switch and be (Washington) D.C. or Boston or New York with subway systems and fixed light rail. We have to slowly build the system.”