Proposed Sahara Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Project

The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) is proposing to construct the Sahara Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, which would consist of a 12-mile corridor that would extend from Hualapai Way to Boulder Highway.  Sahara Avenue is a radial corridor located near the center of the developed metropolitan area that serves the heaviest employment centers in the Las Vegas Valley along with extensive areas of existing and planned commercial and residential development.  The implementation of this project would further bolster the RTC’s efforts to implement a comprehensive bus rapid transit (BRT) network by connecting directly to two other BRT routes, the Las Vegas Monorail and the Deuce premium double-deck bus service on the Las Vegas Strip.

This intermodal project seeks to improve the efficiency and quality of transit service by converting existing breakdown lanes to bus only lanes, improving passenger amenities, increasing the use of off-board fare collection, and by expanding the corridor’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) infrastructure to improve both traffic and transit operations.  Taken together, these provide a significant improvement in the speed, reliability, and efficiency of transit service with little to no impact on traffic capacity.  This, in turn, allows RTC Transit to extend premium transit service on the Sahara transit route to outlying areas with minimal net increase in operating cost and with big potential gains in ridership.

The RTC is requesting $40 million in TIGER Discretionary Grant funding for this project, which is part of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and is part of the continuing process towards transit system improvements in the Las Vegas Valley.  The RTC is in the middle of a $200 million program of capital improvements that include the Sunset Maintenance Facility, Bonneville Transit Center, and the new ACE Rapid Transit routes.  The Sahara Avenue BRT Project will build synergy with these on-going investments. 

The development of the project comes from a 2007 RTC study of the corridor, which can be found on the Sahara Ave. Corridor Study page.

The following are documents used in support of the application for funding the Sahara Avenue BRT Project:

• Amendment to the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) FY 2009-2030 (Submitted September 10, 2009)
• Technical Memorandum to the Environmental Documentation of the Sahara Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Project
  (Developed September 3, 2009)>
• Alternatives Analysis Report to Federal Transit Administration (PDF, 3.6 MB)
  Modeling analysis methodology used to support the model findings of the TIGER Discretionary Grant application
  (Developed 2007)
• “State of the Southern Nevada Economy and its Implications for Transportation” - RTC Report (PDF, 570 KB)
  (Developed September 9, 2009)

Letters of Support (PDF, 1.5 MB)

• Nevada Department of Transportation, July 30,2009 (PDF, 152 KB)
• City of Las Vegas, August 17, 2009 (PDF, 64 KB)
• Clark County Comprehensive Planning, August 3, 2009 (PDF, 216 KB)
• Clark County Board of Commissioners, August 8, 2009 (PDF,156 KB)
• Clark County Public Works, August 11, 2009 (PDF, 220 KB)
• RTC Chairman, Larry Brown, September 4, 2009 (PDF, 172 KB)
• Senator John Ensign, September 10, 2009 (PDF, 216 KB)
• Congresswoman Dina Titus, September 30,2009 (PDF, 393 KB)