Light rail on Maryland Parkway would be a costly endeavor

Thank you for your March 3 editorial identifying the key issue on the Regional Transportation Commission’s light-rail proposal for Maryland Parkway: how to pay for it. The $750 million estimate is a lot of money to spend to replace the parkway’s excellent, popular transit system.

The RTC suggests Federal Transit Administration grants can help pay for it. That is hard to believe. The FTA capital investment grant program has been dramatically cut over the past several years.

A sales tax increase has been alluded to by the RTC and staff. Yet our sales tax is already higher than 75 percent of other jurisdictions. In fact, adding another half cent would result in Nevada’s combined state and average local sales tax being higher than the average in California. Do we want our sales tax to equal or exceed California’s rate?

Let’s remember Las Vegas voters just approved (2016) a referendum to increase our fuel indexing revenue tax. It is now higher than two-thirds of the other states. The $6 billion extra it will generate was supposed to address the region’s transportation needs over the next 10 years.

The RTC and local politicians need to ask themselves: Do they really think Las Vegas voters will support yet another referendum to increase taxes for transportation, this time to substitute rail for a well-functioning bus system? They should take notice: Last May, Nashville voters rejected a tax increase for a light-rail project even though transit boosters vastly outspent their opponents but lost overwhelmingly.