RTC Transit
RTC Transit is the name of the public bus system in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Clark County, Nevada. It is a subsidiary of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. While it services most of Clark County with regularly scheduled routes, most of the service is in the immediate Las Vegas Valley; outlying places such as Mesquite and Laughlin provide transit services to their residents via the Southern Nevada Transit Coalition, which uses several vehicles acquired from RTC Transit. In, the system had a ridership of, or about per weekday as of.
History
Las Vegas Transit
The privately owned Las Vegas Transit System, Inc. provided bus service on the streets of Las Vegas for more than 40 years. LVT service mainly consisted of loop routes that made many turns throughout the city, sometimes doubling back on its own routes and making several "subloops" within a loop. At one point, LVT was named America's worst transit system.The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada was formed in 1965 by state legislation to oversee federally-mandated transportation planning in Clark County. Under pressure by the county and state, and by order of the state court, the company was ordered to cease operations except on Route 6-The Strip and relinquish all its city-owned buses to the Regional Transportation Commission of Clark County as of November 15, 1992. LVT and its successors continued to operate service in competition with Citizens Area Transit until about 2005.
Citizens Area Transit era (1992–2008)
Citizens Area Transit was formed by the RTC to provide reliable bus service to the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Las Vegas Township, Mesquite, and Laughlin. The system began on November 15, 1992 under the direction of Kurt Weinrich, its general manager. Initially the old LVT routes were operated unchanged except for route 6–The Strip, which LVT still retained. The system was totally reconfigured and Strip service begun December 5, 1992. The fleet consisted of mostly old vehicles such as Flxible Grummans, GMC RTSs, TMC RTSs and Gillig Phantoms. They had also purchased 90 new New Flyer D40HFs. The initial route structure was soon seen as deficient and second complete revision was made in June on 1993. Soon after, CAT began to catch on with the city and blossomed. In 1997, the American Public Transportation Association awarded CAT with their highest honor, Best Transit System in America. However, things began to change in the following years. In 2002, The Amalgamated Transit Union and the bus contractor, ATC, began contract renewal negotiations, but the two sides were unable to reach a compromise on operators' wages and in May of that year, CAT suffered its first strike. Several drivers walked off the job and onto the picket lines, and service had to be suspended on several routes. Coach operators from sister agencies were called in to drive the buses and serve the city before a settlement was reached.In 2004, CAT received its first shipment of 10 Irisbus Civis bus rapid transit vehicles from Irisbus. These buses served on the new Metropolitan Area Express route, which serves Nellis Air Force Base via North Las Vegas Boulevard. RTC was a member of the BRT Consortium organized by the Federal Transit Administration in 1999. North Las Vegas Boulevard had been restriped in spring 2000, which converted what had been a breakdown lane into a dedicated transit lane; RTC subsequently applied for a federal grant in 2002 under the Bus Rapid Transit Initiative. The Civis featured an optical guidance system to automate docking at level-boarding platforms, similar to a light-rail system; however, the OGS proved to be unreliable in service due to the difficulty of maintaining pavement markings. Revenue service on MAX started on June 30, 2004; ridership increased by 25% by the end of 2004, and end-to-end travel times were cut approximately in half, from 50 to 25 minutes.
A year later, CAT received its first shipment of 50 double decker buses from Alexander Dennis. As new vehicles arrived, the RTC started a vehicle replacement program and began to retire its older CAT fleet. In March 2007, CAT received its first shipment of 30 Diesel-Electric Hybrid vehicles from New Flyer. Later that year, an additional 40 double deck vehicles from Alexander Dennis arrived, and the RTC unveiled a new rapid transit system which uses the new Diesel-Hybrid RTV Streetcar from Wright Group. The first line was called the "Gold Line", which serviced the downtown and strip corridors.
RTC Transit era (present)
In late 2007, the RTC began to rebrand the Citizens Area Transit system as RTC Transit. The New Flyer 900 series coaches were the last to be purchased with the CAT logo, and the first to be purchased with the RTC logo. The CAT bus stop signs around the city were replaced by "Transit Stop" signs using the RTC logo. All rider alerts, bus announcements, bus books, and new NABI Hybrid, NABI Diesel and New Flyer CNG buses no longer use the CAT logo.The RTC received 50 NABI vehicles and the final shipment of 40 42 ft "Deuce" double-deck buses in summer 2008. The RTC also began to receive 45 New Flyer CNG vehicles in late fall 2008. The rebranding was completed on January 1, 2009 when RTC vehicles started featuring "RTC TRANSIT" along with the normal route destination headers. All remaining CAT buses are in the process of retirement or being refurbished to the new RTC gold/blue livery.
In 2007, nine RTC executives received pay raises which averaged 22%. The raises were based on the findings of a consultant, Peter Ronza, who was once employed by Clark County.
The RTC faced serious legal issues in 2008 after several car accidents involving bus shelters occurred. The public demanded that the RTC improve the safety of its shelters, while the RTC stated that there was only so much they could do. The RTC created a Bus Shelter Advisory Committee, and made studies concerning bus stop safety.
In 2009, the RTC raised bus fares despite public outcry. In 2009 and 2010, proposed bus fares increased from 62% for monthly passes to 100% for full day fare passes. The RTC argued that the fare hikes were due to higher fuel costs, however the largest increase in transit expenditures came from a tripling in capital outlays, rising from $54.5 million in 2007 to $162.9 million in 2009. The price for thirty-day bus passes increased 225% from 1999 to 2010. Ridership was at an all-time high in 2008 due to the very high gas prices, with many people deciding to try transit instead. Ridership numbers declined in 2009 when fuel prices dropped and riders either returned to their own vehicles or began carpooling with co-workers and family.
In January 2010, RTC introduced the ACE branding for its bus rapid transit offerings. The first ACE route was the ACE Gold Line, connecting downtown Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Strip, and the South Strip Transfer Terminal. In addition, ACExpress was introduced as branding for its express bus service, with an express bus line connecting the Centennial Hills neighborhood northwest of the city with downtown Las Vegas, the Center Strip, and UNLV. In May 2010, RTC rebranded its lines away from the "ACE" name due to a lawsuit from Ace Cab, a local Las Vegas taxi operator; ACE Gold became the Strip and Downtown Express ; ACExpress became Centennial Express, and ACE Green became the Boulder Highway Express
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, under its BRT Standard, has classified the Strip and Downtown Express as a "Basic BRT" corridor. The SDX was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and did not return.
Future
In 2018, RTC began examining the possibility of installing light rail or enhanced bus rapid transit service along high-ridership routes, particularly the Maryland Parkway corridor. Subsequently, the Federal Transit Administration awarded the RTC $150 million to upgrade Route 109 to a BRT with 7.2 miles of bus/bike lanes.Operations
The RTC currently operates 51 routes with 17 routes operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including The Deuce on The Strip. Most routes run from early morning until late night. On weekends & holidays, some routes either operate less frequently, operate with less hours, or not operate at all. Las Vegas has one of the most comprehensive night bus networks in the United States, owing to the 24-hour nature of the casinos and hospitality industry.RTC Transit is the largest outsourced transit operation in the United States, having overtaken the title from the now-defunct Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Long Island Bus service in late 2011. As of 2011, the contract is worth approximately $600 million over seven years. The fixed route system had been operated by Veolia Transport and its predecessors, ATC-Vancom and National Express, since inception. Bus operators, mechanics, and most other contractor employees are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1637. Paratransit and dial-a-ride services are operated by First Transit.
The fixed route contract was scheduled to expire September 25, 2011, and was awarded to First Transit, the apparent low bidder and highest scorer on the comprehensive review, however, Veolia has complained to the RTC board of bidding irregularities in the First Transit bid as well as an unfair emphasis on price in comparison to other technical factors. The RTC board approved the First Transit bid on a 4-3 vote, but after the Nevada Attorney General reprimanded the RTC for approving the contract without a majority of the eight members on the RTC board, which was determined by a district court judge that all 8 members were not required and the award was legitimate. However, in the fallout of the court decision, the RTC returned for a re-vote in which the board then deadlocked at 4-4 for multiple months. The RTC board decided that it was best to cancel the award and bring forward a new fresh proposal for bid, and gave Veolia a 1-year extension while the board found a means to obtain a majority to make a decision. First Transit subsequently sued the RTC to force them to make a decision.
In November 2011 First Transit and the RTC settled their lawsuit. First Transit continued to operate the paratransit system and Veolia continued to operate the fixed route bus system until the end of 2012. The new fixed route transit contract will be split into two, to allow smaller vendors to bid. The two contract system is similar to that of Foothill Transit in the Los Angeles area, which is the third largest outsourced fixed route public transit system in the United States.
In December 2012, the contractors for both yards submitted their 1st round proposals with Veolia, Keolis, and MV Transportation advancing to round 2 and First Transit failing to advance. In January 2013, the remaining contractors submitted their final proposals to the board, and on February 14, 2013, the RTC voted to award the Sunset Maintenance Facility to Keolis, and the Simmons Maintenance Facility to MV, beating out the original two contractors. Keolis and MV began operations of RTC Transit on July 7, 2013 at 12:00am.
MV operates routes 101, 102, 105, 106, 110, 111, 113, 115, 120, 121, 203, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 214, 215, 218, 219, 603, 604, 607, CX, & DVX. These routes are primarily in the northern portion of the service area. MV also operates the 700 series routes. Keolis operates routes 103, 104, 108, 109, 117, 119, 122, 201, 202, 212, 217, 401, 402, 601, 602, 605, 606, 608, The Deuce on The Strip, BHX, & SX. These routes are primarily in the southern portion of the service area. MV also operates RTC Paratransit operations as of March 2020.
RTC once again consolidated the expiring individual fixed route contracts held by Keolis and MV respectively. The 4-year contract was awarded to First Transit, which was subsequently purchased by Transdev. Transdev took over operations on July 1, 2023.