East Las Vegas area to get new bus routes, equipment
When the Regional Transportation Commission unveiled its express route in the northwest valley, residents on the east side grumbled that transit officials paid no attention to the older sections of town.
In September, that will change.
The sleek new vehicles that look like light-rail trains will be removed from the Centennial Hills route and placed on two new lines that will open Sept. 18. One will hum along Boulder Highway, and the other will link Henderson to downtown Las Vegas.
Those should be better routes for the state-of-the-art electric-diesel hybrid buses, which hold their charge more efficiently when they stop frequently, said Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission.
When new systems are introduced, experts learn as they are tested. In the case of the Centennial Hills route, unveiled in March 2010, transit officials learned that the new vehicles did not handle it well.
The hybrid vehicle was sluggish up the grade on return trips to Centennial Hills.
Heavy loads of people, long hauls without stopping and the heat in the southern portion of the valley caused some power problems on the freeway, Snow said.
“That combination of experience leads us to believe there are other vehicles in our fleet that are better for that operation,” he said.
For the past 14 months, residents and business owners along Boulder Highway have experienced extensive road construction. The result is a designated bus lane for the Boulder Highway express line.
Snow said the trip from Boulder Highway to the Bonneville Transit Center in downtown Las Vegas will be 25 minutes shorter than the regular route.
The line runs between downtown Las Vegas and Sunset Station.
The route veers off Boulder Highway at Sunset Road, makes stops at the Galleria at Sunset mall and the casino before turning around. Twelve stops are included on the route.
The Henderson express route will shorten the one hour and 10 minute commute to about 45 minutes. It will run through downtown Las Vegas, making stops downtown and at Symphony Park and then head southeast where it terminates at Nevada State College.
The line shares four stops with the Boulder Highway line and makes several stops in the Henderson area, including two on Water Street.
Snow said he hopes to capture more riders with a change in the schedule to the Henderson service. Rather than leaving every hour, the Henderson to downtown bus will depart every half hour.
“It’s difficult to time your commute around that and have it be a reliable service,” Snow said of the hour lapse in departure times. “If it doesn’t work out with when you need to be at work or when you need to be at home, it doesn’t attract people.
“These are significant upgrades to our service. It will be a more reliable, more frequent and nicer service to attract passengers.”
In addition to the new service, transit work crews added landscaping and improved the sidewalks along the Boulder Highway corridor, the primary route for both lines.
Fiber optic cables were installed beneath the surface of the roadway, allowing the Freeway Arterial System of Transportation engineers to more closely monitor traffic and better synchronize the traffic signals.
“It is going to be beneficial to cyclists, pedestrians, automobiles and transit riders,” Snow said.
Contact reporter Adrienne Packer at apacker@review
journal.com or 702-387-2904.
