Southern Nevada mass transit options focused on many fronts
Mass transit isn’t just about bus ridership anymore, the head of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada said Wednesday.
Light-rail lines, driverless vehicles and partnerships with ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft are being studied as options to move residents and tourists in busy areas around the Strip and beyond, Tina Quigley, the RTC’s general manager, told about 200 people gathered for a transportation panel hosted by the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance.
“Our own personal vehicles are the most inefficient thing we could ever put our money into,” Quigley said during the panel discussion held at the Four Seasons Hotel.
“You only sit in your car and use it about 5 percent of your life, maybe 10 percent at the most, and yet it’s with you all the time,” Quigley said. “Economists and businesses are recognizing that there’s a lot of money to be made by figuring out how to give consumer relief from having to support that very expensive tool.”
Quigley moderated the discussion with panelists Bruce Woodbury, a former Clark County Commissioner and former chairman of the RTC’s board; Scott Smith, interim CEO of Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority in Arizona; and Don Snyder, chairman of the RTC’s Transportation Resource Advisory Committee.
Woodbury said that concentrating public transit options in areas like the Strip would eventually help to relieve traffic for locals living in other areas of Las Vegas.
“We need to look forward in the next 20 to 25 years,” Snyder said. “But the next five years are the most critical in how we factor in the evolution of what’s happening with the pace of technology.”
Contact Art Marroquin at amarroquin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Find @AMarroquin_LV on Twitter.
