Regional cooperation

It seems that no political or economic force is strong enough to derail planners' dreams of a mass-transit utopia.

A Tuesday conference at UNLV on how stronger partnerships with the federal government might help fast-growing Intermountain West states return to prosperity highlighted a handful of ideas that are so impractical they warrant no discussion, let alone a place at the bottom of a mammoth list of policy and infrastructure priorities for the region.

First among those was a pitch from Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, that elected officials look to high-speed passenger trains for improved interstate travel, rather than new major highway improvements between metropolitan areas. A Brookings Institution Report released July 20 said a direct interstate highway between Las Vegas and Phoenix will be badly needed in the decades ahead.

Never mind that such rail lines would cost tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars to construct, and that most train passengers would need to rent vehicles upon arriving at their destinations. Never mind that such passenger trains would do nothing to help move billions of dollars worth of cargo from Mexico to Canada and back.

What's lost on Mr. Snow and the report's authors is the fact that a Las Vegas-to-Phoenix freeway has been under development for two decades and is nearing completion. Arizona has poured hundreds of millions of dollars worth of improvements into U.S. Highway 93, north and south of Kingman, to turn what used to be a dangerous stretch of two-lane highway into a relatively easy drive between cities. When the Hoover Dam bypass bridge and its connecting approaches are completed in about two years, the trip will be cut to perhaps 41/2 hours -- with breaks, and without speeding.

Southern Nevada doesn't have the resources to fund its own badly needed highway improvements, and the region's big thinkers want to talk about looting the public to build a redundant superhighway and fancy train lines that no one wants?

Amid a hurting economy, now is the time for a reasonable discussion of affordable priorities, not budget-busting pipe dreams.