Vegas Speed Train Called a Bad Bet for the Southland

LAS VEGAS —  This desert resort was warned Thursday that its proposed Los Angeles-Las Vegas super-speed train faces many obstacles but the biggest may be the reasons for building it: to help gamblers get to Vegas.

Even as Las Vegas officials pulled out all the stops, the planned 250- to 300-m.p.h. train was characterized as a “one-sided” project that would only speed up, as one Los Angeles planner put it, “the flow of dollars from Southern California to Nevada.”

Furthermore, with about 80% of the route slashing across California desert land, there is little that the high-speed system can offer toward easing congestion on the state’s freeways and streets, according to an official of the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

While conceding that the trains would draw passengers away from the airlines, thus reducing somewhat the need for costly airport construction in Southern California, Jim Gosnell, the government association’s director of transportation planning, said: “It is difficult to generate enthusiasm for a proposal that surely will exacerbate these (freeway and street) problems.”

Under the Las Vegas plan, futuristic “magnetic levitation” trains would carry passengers across the high desert between Ontario and Las Vegas in 70 to 75 minutes by the year 2000. Magnetically levitated or “mag-lev” trains are still in the experimental stage. They float a few inches above a fixed guideway and are sped along, almost soundlessly, by a magnetic flow.

Gosnell was among a series of witnesses, most of them staunch backers of the $2-billion, super-speed train concept, who appeared at a congressional hearing to consider the feasibility of mag-lev systems and also the role that the federal government should play in this project and other proposed high-speed rail systems.

Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside), whose transportation, aviation and materials subcommittee called the hearing, said he was also interested in the economic and financial problems of high-speed rail technology.

Future Role of Trains Noted

“With major airports and interstate highways already reaching the saturation point, innovative high-speed train systems may indeed play a key role in meeting future transportation needs of our nation,” said Brown, who represents the fast-growing Inland Empire area where the Las Vegas trains’ Southern California terminals would be located.

Although Las Vegas already has spent nearly $1.5 million on feasibility studies, much of it from the federal government, Lou Thompson, a high-ranking Federal Railroad Administration official, told the subcommittee that one of the major problems involved financing.

“Who pays?” he asked. He said the ideas for the train as expressed by Las Vegas officials are based on the assumption that the private sector will pay.

But, he said, “only a state or regional authority can provide assurances of continuity over the construction time (six to eight years). We see no federal financial role (since there will be) mostly state and local benefits. But the federal government has provided expertise and money for studies.”

Economic Benefits Touted

Flanked by Las Vegas Mayor William Briare, Councilman Ron Lurie and other Las Vegas officials, Jack Libby, a builder-developer and Federal Home Loan Bank official, told the subcommittee that the high-speed train project would pave the way for “a new era of economic growth and development” for both regions it would serve.

“A super-speed train service between Los Angeles (Ontario) and Las Vegas could very well be the most important project in the history of our two communities,” he said.

At the same time, he observed that Californians sometimes ask: “What is in it for us?”

“Since 80% of the project would be in California, Southern California would receive a majority of the economic benefits, including employment, construction and tax revenue. . . . It would provide a highly visible attraction for increased tourism to California, much like Disneyland.

‘Showcase to the World’

“Since it is the first technology of its kind, it would be a showcase to the world and California would be a major part of it. (It) might well be the most exciting, the most courageous, the most innovative ground transportation system in the history of the United States.”

During the project’s initial study phase, questions were raised about the number of passengers that the trains would carry. Earlier findings suggested that 4 million people a year would use the trains, but Robert E. Parsons, Las Vegas’ coordinator for the project, said preliminary figures for later stages of the project show a potential ridership of about 5.5 million.

At the same time, he conceded that while Southern California would realize short-term benefits in construction, supplies and other areas totaling 85% of the project, “long-term benefits are pro-Las Vegas,” considering the “Southern California appetite for the Las Vegas style of adult entertainment.”