Candidates tackle transportation at forum

How do you avoid gridlock within the region in 20 years? How feasible is a high-speed train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas? How do you entice area commuters to leave their cars at home and take a bus?

These were some of the questions that six Clark County Commission candidates tackled Saturday at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Las Vegas Valley.

The forum was originally planned as a debate about transportation. But when Republican candidate Brian Scroggins canceled, leaving Democrat Steve Sisolak without an opponent, the league's organizers opted for a straight question-and-answer format.

Although the candidates diverged on many points, they all agreed that transportation has grown nettlesome as the area's population has exploded.

They also agreed that the biggest snag was getting funds to pay for improvements.

Long-term solutions call for a partnership between the public and private sectors, and emulating cities that have handled their transportation problems, Sisolak said.

"We need to look at what other cities have done," Sisolak said.

Other candidates who participated were: Tom Collins and Gary Hosea, District B; Larry Brown and Valerie Weber, District C; and Tom McGowan, District D.

Brown said meeting all of the valley's transportation needs would cost an estimated $3.6 billion. The state must chip in funding if transportation is ever to catch up with the area's growth, he said.

Building mass transit is a crucial but challenging task, he said, because "we in the West are in love with our cars."

To attract motorists, buses must be as fast as cars, offer a thorough network of routes and be pleasant to ride, Brown said.

Weber said she simulated via computer a 10-mile bus ride to the Strip, and found the commute was more than an hour and 20 minutes each way.

The system needs to be improved for ridership to substantially increase, she said.

"It needs to be affordable, reliable, easy and convenient to your neighborhood," Weber said.

Collins said every facet of the area's transportation system must be expanded and upgraded, including freeways, railways, bus routes and bike trails, he said.

Hosea said the county should develop an extensive park-and-ride system similar to San Diego's. That way, commuters could park their cars near a bus stop without worrying that they'll be ticketed or their cars towed, he said.

Hosea criticized the County Commission for spending roughly $90 million in the past two years to boost the financially ailing University Medical Center, saying that most of the money could've gone to transportation.

He then took a jab at Collins, his political rival, for owning a big, fuel-guzzling truck.

"My opponent said he is for cutting waste, yet he drives a wasteful vehicle," Hosea said. Smiling, Collins said he uses the truck to haul horses and livestock to rodeos and other shows.

A few candidates expressed support for toll roads, in part because companies would build them with their own money instead of tax dollars.

A toll road between Las Vegas and California might be an appealing alternative to a bumper-to-bumper crawl on Interstate 15, Sisolak said.

Candidates also discussed the possibility of a high-speed train zooming between Los Angeles and Southern Nevada. Brown said the idea has been bandied about since the late 1970s, but only in recent years has the Regional Transportation Commission received funding for the project.

There's now about $40 million earmarked for design and planning, Brown said. The railway would cost tens of billions of dollars to complete, he added.

Weber said it generally takes decades for a government to build a rail system of this magnitude.

"When it happens, it takes 25 years before it's all completed," Weber said.