Hey, remember when it was revealed that Las Vegas had yet to study the cost of transportation improvements needed to support a new Raiders stadium, and I noted that that was a terrible idea, given how “build first, study transportation later” had turned out in Cobb County? Well, now we have our first Las Vegas Raiders traffic study, and its estimated cost projection is “who the hell knows?”
The study lists close to 40 on-site and off-site transportation improvement measures that include widening Polaris Avenue, constructing multiple access roads to the stadium and creating traffic signal timing plans for games and other events.
But the county currently has no estimates on costs or timelines to complete the suggested improvements, most of which need to be ready by the 2020 NFL season.
“All of that is going to be determined later,” county spokesman Erik Pappa said. “A traffic study is only one part of the process, and it will have to be reviewed and accepted. Each proposed feature carries a cost and perhaps more traffic features will be sought by staff and the County Commission.”
Okay, then! Thought somebody might have wanted to know the cost before approving the stadium, or at least before the stadium is actually open and Clark County suddenly is faced with a bunch of unanticipated costs, but I guess that’s not how they roll in Vegas.
Also, how about the Las Vegas Review-Journal, actually reporting on potentially negative aspects of the Raiders stadium? Guess Sheldon Adelson doesn’t mind actually reporting on stadium cost news now that it’s no longer his stadium.
There are standard average costs per mile of paved roadway so if there is a list of projects they should be able to put at least a ballpark figure on them. But this goes right in line with how this has been from the start: Vegas wants the NFL badly enough there is no cost they would be unwilling to pay.
Since vast thongs of out of town tourists are supposed to be flocking to this stadium, how about a toll bridge for pedestrians connecting the strip? It would pay for itself… in about 100 years.
Normally it would be “throngs”, but in Vegas, “thongs” might be a more appropriate term.
Oops.
First in foreclosures, last in education, it was an idiotic plan in the first place. The premise that 20k traveling tourists would flock to the desert for 3 and 1/2 days, 10 times an NFL year is ridiculous.
Las Vegas knows how to please the NFL. The local pols will make sure the public gives ’til it hurts. In the Club of 32, we refer to that as “the natural order of things.”
I love the smell of public stadium cash in the morning!