Pete Buttigieg, US Secretary of Transportation, joined a groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas on August 13 for the Maryland Parkway Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project. The Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission’s (RTC) $378 million effort aims to improve safety and improve functionality along one of the area’s most important corridors.
“Thanks to President Biden, Vice President Harris and this congressional delegation, we passed historic infrastructure funding that includes the largest public transit investment in American history,” Buttigieg said in an RTC press release. “We’re using this funding package to improve roads in Las Vegas, we’ve begun work on America’s first high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California, and today we’re starting construction on a new rapid bus route that will give residents a faster, more reliable and more convenient ride between the airport, UNLV, downtown Las Vegas and the Medical District.”
The project is funded in part by a nearly $150 million federal grant from the Federal Transportation Administration and runs from the South Strip Transit Terminal on Gillespie Street to the Las Vegas Medical District near downtown Las Vegas. city It will expand transit service and improve up to 50 transit shelters, with the development of seven miles of shared bus-bike lanes and widened sidewalks, signalized crosswalks and advanced signal timing. The route will feature hydrogen fuel cell electric buses.
As ENR previously reported, plans by GCW Engineering Inc., Las Vegas, call for a 12.5-mile corridor between the South Strip Transit Terminal and the Las Vegas Medical District. Maryland Parkway currently has three lanes in each direction plus a center left turn lane. The project would reconfigure the road to have a shared bus and bike lane on the outside in both directions, and replace parts of the center lane with a median.
Officials recently awarded a $129.8 million contract to Las Vegas Paving Corp. for the construction of the Las Vegas portion of the project. Another contract covering work in Clark County had been scheduled to be awarded.
Construction began in August on three parts of the corridor north of Sahara Avenue, with completion of the phased project expected by the end of 2026.
