RTC celebrates 30 years, looks ahead to Maryland Parkway project

The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada has grown tremendously over the past three decades.

The Las Vegas Valley’s transportation commission is celebrating 30 years of service and 1.5 billion rides while looking ahead to creating new milestones.

When the RTC took over in 1992 from the for-profit Las Vegas Transit, it had 10 routes and a handful of bus stops across the valley. Now the system features 39 routes and over 3,500 bus shelters valleywide.

“Thirty never looked so good in our car-centric loving community,” RTC CEO MJ Maynard said Monday. “When you look around the United States, we’re actually a young transit system. But for Southern Nevada 30 years of public transit certainly means a lot connecting the community.”

Over the years the RTC has opened multiple maintenance yards, transit centers and training centers across the valley. It also has consistently upgraded the buses it uses on the system, from adding the first double-decker buses on the Las Vegas Strip route in 2005, to moving away from diesel-fueled buses to more environmentally friendly ones.

The RTC on Monday recognized 18 bus drivers and maintenance workers who have been with the agency for between 28 years and the full 30 years it has been in operation.

Each was presented with a street sign with their name and first day of service printed on it.

Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, who also sits on the RTC Board of Commissioners, said those workers are the real heroes of the system, sticking around all these years, dealing with disgruntled workers and the situations that arose during COVID-19 pandemic.

“The truth is I can’t imagine a more difficult place to drive (a bus) than Las Vegas, given how our roads work and all the construction,” Segerblom said. “The fact that all these people hung around there for 30 years, it’s amazing.”

Major project coming up

Although the RTC is celebrating its past, officials are continually looking toward the future, with one of the largest projects the commission has taken on — the Maryland Parkway bus rapid transit system — on the horizon.

The bus rapid transit system features an in-street design with dedicated bus lanes that double as turn lanes when buses are not present. Bike lanes planned for the route will be located off the main road, with the bus lane providing a buffer between automobiles and bicyclists.

Each bus on the system will be 60 feet long and able to carry up to 90 passengers. Stations will be spaced a third of a mile apart on the route that stretches from near the airport on Maryland Parkway to downtown Las Vegas and to the Medical District.

The estimated $345 million project was chosen by the RTC board over a $1 billion light rail alternative.

The design phase is nearly 90 percent complete with a few more steps needed to get construction underway.

“We’ll also be applying for a federal grant this spring,” Maynard said. “We anticipate beginning construction in 2024 and having service in place in 2025. Excited that the project will be on the ground.”

The Maryland Parkway project will be the first RTC project with a dedicated fleet of zero-emission vehicles.

“I believe there will be 15 zero emission vehicles at this point,” Maynard said. “I think we’re going to be testing hydrogen fuel cell buses on that route because of the length of that route.”

The bus rapid transit project is just the beginning of what the RTC has planned for the future of transit in the valley.

“They (residents) want higher capacity transit, they want a bus that’s going to be more frequent,” Maynard said. “That’s bus rapid transit in its dedicated lane. Is it light rail potentially? Is it a bus going underground, similar to the Boring Co.? I think we’re listening to what the community would like to see.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.