Monorail expansion to airport wouldn’t help

To the editor:

I saw recently that management of the Las Vegas Monorail says expanding to the airport is critical to the project’s success. But they can’t even manage the current monorail properly, so why would we want them screwing up our hotel transportation?

I have traveled to about 90 percent of the bigger cities in America, Hawaii, Mexico and a couple in Europe. I fly into Washington regularly. The Las Vegas airport is the best managed of all of the airports I have visited. Las Vegas has as near perfect a system now as can be expected. The airport is situated far enough away from the Strip and community to assemble people in travel mode — yet close enough to be economical. The taxi coordination of staging, loading and departure is truly an art in action.

We give our visitors, and those of us who live here, the fastest, best-priced individual transportation to our individual destinations I have ever been involved in. To expect our hotel guests to struggle with their luggage while boarding a moving monorail, wait for their hotel while managing luggage and children, disembark, struggle with their luggage — this is detrimental to our base industry.

I was a member of the Regional Transportation Commission advisory committee for 25 years and was chair for about 10 of these years. The monorail was considered numerous times and always deemed not worthy of consideration. Where we need a monorail is east to west through the transportation center, which I dedicated. This should be considered — with the advice of the RTC staff, who may have a better transportation center location.

Members of the RTC staff are the right hand of decision-makers in our transportation needs, not the politicians, who usually get us in trouble.

Tom W. Davis

Las Vegas

Common sense

To the editor:

With all the talk of carnage in our streets here in the valley between pedestrians and automobiles/trucks, I have a simple solution to the problem. It doesn’t involve $25 million pedestrian walkways, spending millions on new speed limit signs or hiring 1,500 more Metro cops. Here it is:

— When a pedestrian approaches a cross walk, he must assume that any moving vehicle within at least two blocks will not stop for him. He should stay on the curb until the street is clear for at least those two blocks and then walk. We will call these folks survivors if they follow the rule; decedents if they don’t.

— When an operator of a vehicle approaches a crosswalk and there is a pedestrian on the curb, he must assume that person is going to step into his path, regardless of how far away he might be. Slow down or be prepared to stop. We will call these folks smart if they follow the rule; defendants if they don’t.

This solution is called “common sense” and it is free, although terribly lacking in our society these days, don’t you think?

James Armstrong

Las Vegas

Last to know

To the editor:

I had to chuckle in amusement as I watched Mrs. Herman Cain’s recent television interview regarding her husband’s alleged inappropriate conduct toward women. She was adamant that her husband was innocent of such behavior.

I just want to say to Mrs. Cain: The wife is always the last to know. Just ask Maria Shriver.

Annemarie Kubicek

Las Vegas

Budget debate

To the editor:

I am writing today as an American who is imploring the members of the congressional supercommittee to demonstrate profiles in courage by doing what the president is requesting; namely, to “bite the bullet and do what has to be done” to enact a viable deficit reduction package that cuts $3 trillion-plus from our federal budgets over the course of the next decade.

Since this Great Recession commenced some four years ago, many Americans have been beset by extreme economic anxieties they have had to confront on nearly a daily basis — anxieties not only concerning their personal household budgets and how to make ends meet, but additionally a deep and pervasive sense of anxiety with regard to the future of our nation’s entitlement programs, which they know all too well cannot be sustained without significant reforms being made to them.

I am calling upon the 12 members of the supercommittee, comprised of members from the House and the Senate, to demonstrate not only a cause greater than themselves, but additionally profiles in courage to end once and for all the anxieties of Americans with respect to the future of entitlement programs. They must include reforms to Medicaid and Medicare in this ongoing deficit reduction series of negotiations that must come up with an agreed upon seven vote minimum consensus no later than November 23. Failure is not an option; an the American people not only need and deserve significant relief from their economic anxieties, they voted for you and sent you to Congress to make the difficult and unpopular decisions that must be made.

Please do so, right here and now. This is the last bipartisan opportunity this Congress is likely to have prior to the November 2012 elections.

A full 53 percent of the American people in a recent poll want Congress to enact policies that will reduce the federal budget deficits and restore both confidence and stability to our economic standing as a nation, as well as sending a calming signal to global markets overseas.

Mark H. Ladenson

Las Vegas

Water waste?

To the editor:

Can someone please explain to me why, when according to some we are desperately in need of water from Northern Nevada ranchers and businesses, we would approve a huge new water park here in Las Vegas (Tuesday Review-Journal)?

Does anyone see what’s wrong with this picture?

Ruth Nixon

Henderson