$ RTC looks Heller, first to feds Rosen to pony up spar on Yucca for project

Growth potential makes it good candidate for grant Delayed project Senate race focus

Second of a three-part series.

for a proposed high-capacity transit system in Las Vegas doesn’t exist yet.

Officials at the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada said they plan to aggressively pursue a federal transportation grant that could pay for up to half of a $750 million light-rail line on Maryland Parkway or a bus rapid transit

FMAKEOVER route that would cost $335 million.

Another significant funding source would probably come from a sales tax increase that could be decided by Clark County voters in November 2020.

“You have two things that are, at this point, more aspirational than they are sitting in the bank,” said Guy Hobbs, a financial adviser now serving as a project consultant for the

LIGHT RAIL

WASHINGTON — A pivotal Senate race in Nevada that Republicans and Democrats covet for control of the upper chamber of Congress has become ground zero in the Yucca Mountain debate.

Both Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic challenger Rep. Jacky Rosen oppose a nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain, and have fought to stop the project in Congress.

The issue was thrust into the testy Senate race last week when Heller and Rosen tangled over who best could stop the controversial nuclear repository from being built.

“The only way to keep Yucca Mountain from happening is to keep me in the United States Senate,” Heller told the Review-journal.

YUCCA

RTC.

Even if a high-capacity transit plan is adopted in September, RTC officials would not know until 2020 whether they would receive money from the Federal Transit Administration through a competitive federal grant program known as New Starts, which specifically funds light-rail and bus rapid transit projects.

Hobbs and RTC Finance Director Marc Traasdahl said they believe that Maryland Parkway would be a prime candidate for the New Starts grant because there is a high potential for economic development surrounding the proposed 8.7-mile transit route, which would run from Mccarran International Airport past UNLV, Sunrise Hospital and the Boulevard Mall to downtown Las Vegas.

If the New Starts grant is denied, then the funding burden shifts to what RTC officials are calling “local source revenue,” or a proposed sales tax increase.

“That’s certainly not ideal,” Hobbs said. “We’re still early in the planning process, and the local source revenue hasn’t been identified … but I certainly wouldn’t say the project would be off the table if we did not get New Starts.”

Sales tax possibility

Along with the federal New Starts grant, Hobbs said the RTC will also seek traffic congestion mitigation grants as well as a mix of state and local money.

From there, the funding formula would likely include a sales tax increase, which would be placed on the 2020 ballot, to pay for an array of transportation projects in Clark County, including the proposed light-rail or bus rapid transit line for Maryland Parkway.

While RTC officials have not yet determined how much they’d need to raise the sales tax, they are looking to Maricopa County, Arizona, as a model for the ballot question. Voters there approved a half-cent sales tax in 2004 that funded a mix of freeways, streets, bicycle paths, buses and a light-rail line.

Voters in Denver approved a six-tenths of 1 percent sales tax increase in 1994 along with a subsequent four-tenths increase to pay for light rail and other transit projects.

“The fact other communities settled on a sales tax isn’t a particularly surprising thing because it’s generally a robust revenue source, and in the credit markets, it’s a well-understood source of revenue pledge for bonds,” Hobbs said.

In 2016, Clark County voters approved Question 5, a 10-year extension of the fuel revenue index tax that took effect in 2013 to pay for regional road improvements. The tax is projected to generate about $3 billion, paying for nearly 200 transportation projects.

RTC officials said Clark County has over $6 billion in improvements that need to be addressed over the next decade, only half of which are covered by the fuel revenue index tax extension.

Additionally, the RTC is barred from dipping into fuel taxes to pay for light-rail projects.

Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a bill in June 2017 that gives the RTC until the end of 2020 to seek light-rail funding through a sales tax hike.

“The sales tax we’re studying is not just dependent solely on Maryland Parkway, but rather a bigger and broader plan based on