Please, don’t take our Maryland Parkway lanes!
I’m not a traffic engineer, or a city planner, or a social scientist. I’m but a simple driver on the roads of Las Vegas.
And I have a simple request of the Regional Transportation Commission, the valley agency in charge of traffic planning: Please don’t take away our Maryland Parkway lanes!
Reducing the six-lane arterial to four lanes is among the options under consideration as planners examine what to do about Maryland Parkway, one of the most-used bus routes in the valley but a road on which vehicle traffic has declined over the past 10 years.
One idea: Take two of the four lanes and create dedicated bus-only routes, either next to the curb on each side of the street or down the center of the parkway.
The RTC was able to create dedicated bus lanes on busy Sahara Avenue without robbing drivers of their six travel lanes — planners used the breakdown lane and trimmed a foot off each regular lane to make the bus lanes. But Maryland Parkway has no breakdown lane; all six lanes are used for traffic. Thus, if the RTC goes with dedicated bus lanes, drivers will have 33 percent less road surface.
David Swallow, director of engineering services for capital projects for the RTC, says regular car traffic has fallen on Maryland Parkway: In 2002, the state Transportation Department counted 39,000 cars per day at the intersection of Maryland and Flamingo Road. Last year, that count had fallen to 24,500 cars per day.
Meanwhile, about 9,000 people ride the bus every day on Maryland; it’s the busiest north-south bus route in the city other than the Strip, and the third- or fourth-busiest bus-ridership route in the city overall, according to the RTC. That’s one reason why a redesign of Maryland carries an emphasis on accommodating buses.
The RTC stressed that no final decisions have been made yet. A series of public hearings has already been held, and the agency’s staff is devising recommendations now. Another series of hearings will be held in the fall, and a final recommendation to the RTC board will be made then.
Sign me up for saying, once again: Please don’t take one of our travel lanes!
“The last thing we want to do is increase congestion,” Swallow said. “I think right now we’re just keeping our options open.”
Most of them, anyway. Expensive alternatives that were on the table from the start, such as a subway or monorail, have been ruled out. I’m strongly urging the RTC to put dedicated bus lanes on the no-go list, too.
I serve on a board at UNLV and visit occasionally for events at the campus. I regularly use Maryland Parkway, which marks the eastern edge of the university, and I know those lanes generally are crowded. I can’t imagine that taking two of the six lanes — even if you boost bus ridership — would make things better.
Another concern for the RTC: pedestrians, of which there are a lot. New, bright LED signals in the middle of the block warn drivers when people are crossing, and traffic gets snarled as a result. I suggested physically separating pedestrians from the roadway with elevated crossings, the way it’s been done successfully on the Strip, but Swallow suggested that if even more pedestrians were on the roads, drivers would learn to go slower.
Here, we may have a philosophical disagreement. I say roads are for facilitating the passage of vehicle traffic, which should be interrupted as infrequently as possible with signal lights and crossings. I suspect the RTC disagrees.
Still, I think we can accommodate everybody. Increase the number of buses on Maryland Parkway so bus riders don’t have to wait as long. But leave the travel lanes as they are, usable by buses and regular drivers alike. Yes, there will be frustration as traffic gets caught behind buses stopping to pick up and drop off passengers. But when the buses aren’t using the lane, the rest of us can. (Another, albeit more costly option: bus turnouts carved into the sidewalk so traffic can pass when riders board and exit.)
But please, RTC, don’t take our Maryland Parkway lanes!
Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@ reviewjournal.com.
