Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada

Economic development and making sure we have the right mix of development and that we've got good, sustainable living wage jobs and encouraging new development to come in to provide those jobs for folks is also another way to help with the affordability challenges that we're seeing, and then just making sure that w- at the end of the day, when they go home to their families, they're not fighting with the government.

Um, let me ask you this as a quick follow-up, um, which is RTC has a built-in, uh, raise, uh, that goes along with inflation.

Um, how would you, uh, adjust that? Because otherwise, the price of gas is gonna continue to go up.

So, uh, we're gonna have to look at what all of our different transportation options are, and that is certainly an issue for folks who are price sensitive.

w-Las Vegas residents spend about 30% of their monthly, um, incomes on transportation, owning and maintaining a vehicle, gas, car insurance, parking fees.

All of these costs add up.

So, um, two county commissioners serve on the board of the Regional Transportation Commission, RTC, so I would like to invest in more public transportation infrastructure, adding more frequencies of our bus systems, um, improving the shade structures of our bus stops, and also to support, um, a high capacity mass transit project, like a light rail in the Las Vegas Valley, to help really lower the cost for our local residents.

Um, some of the other expenses are healthcare, um, and childcare.

But our Open Transit Initiative was the first example way back when we first started talking about this.

If the Open Transit Initiative as an open source project would become interesting to a transit entity, maybe the Regional Transportation Commission here in the I'm sure you can hear the emergency vehicle part two.

Again, hopefully everybody's okay.

So if we were to spin off the support organization behind Open Transit, that organization may work directly with the Transportation Commission here in Southern Nevada for continuing engineering and support and development and so on.

They took the lead on it, and we will reimburse them for a good chunk of the cost on that.

Uh, we're exploring other options on alternative routes, um, as, uh, w- we, we have an upcoming meeting with the RTC to discuss regionally, uh, a joint meeting, uh, to discuss some alternative routes, and, uh, and certainly our private sector partners are, uh, engaged in, in those conversations as well.

Okay, because, you know, if you go back a few years, I know in my discussions with people, um, that are involved in these kind of things, that they were saying that the majority of money is gonna be spent in Southern Nevada because that's where the largest population base is, but there's incredible need in the north, not just in Storey County, but in, in Washoe, you know, Sparks as well.

Um, so do you envision that these private companies, um, are gonna be putting money in, or you're gonna have to do things with the county to ensure that as you put out these building permits, that, that they put in, you know, the roadways and the other infrastructure that's necessary?

And so maybe that is something we look at down the road.

The funding source is almost always the impediment.

Right, and, um, you know, a few years ago, RTC of Southern Nevada was looking at Maryland Parkway, a heavily trafficked, uh, road area down there, and they were looking at light rail, and there was a big push towards that, and they just felt that it was just way too expensive, and they put in these much larger buses, um, as the solution down there.

Yeah.