Lethal Bus Stops in Clark County, Nevada

This morning I read an article in the Las Vegas Sun by a reporter named Joe Schoenmann regarding a meeting of the Clark County Bus Shelter and Bench Advisory Committee. I was at that meeting and I spoke in two capacities, as a member of the State Assembly and as the chairman for the Citizens for Better Transportation and Safety. Nothing I said was reported by Mr. Schoenmann, which is a shame because what I said would have made a significant difference in his article; particularly because he asks whether or not something is going to be done at its end. I rarely read either of the two newspapers in the Las Vegas area any more, primarily because neither of them gets anything right. They don't hire staff capable of better than low-level prose and cursory research, and their agenda continues to get in the way of the story. An example comes in this article's third paragraph: he gets the name of Portia Hughes' husband wrong. Joe, the man's name is Markton, not Martin. If you bothered to listen before you wrote, you wouldn't have glaring errors on the page. Another massive hole in the story is in what was written about the committee's reaction to the testimony. Of course, a good portion of that reaction was after I spoke, and the Sun has an agenda to not report anything I say or do that is positive since I upset the publisher by challenging and beating Steve Wynn, one of the publisher's drinking buddies. Those reactions centered around the solutions I proposed, none of which are in the article. I mentioned the placement of steel and concrete bollards that would prevent any errant car of truck from being able to hit people waiting at a bus stop. I spoke about the contract the RTC has with Outdoor Promotions and that those funds could be used for the moving of the shelters and the installation of bollards. I also mentioned the nuclear option, eminent domain...none of which appeared in Mr. Schoenmann's haphazard story. Robin, the surviving daughter of Patricia Huff also spoke, eloquently, and at length. You made the point that LA has greater traffic and more bus shelters than Clark County and somehow those passengers haven't been killed. If Schoenmann had done his research, he would have also found out that Outdoor Promotions also does business there. So what makes the difference? The difference is that LA has stiffer laws protecting life than we do. A human life is worth more there than it is here. Here, the RTC staff run the numbers and decide that the cost of losing a few riders to death and injury won't cost as much, including suits since a public agency has a cap on what can be won, as actually doing the right thing. Portia's lawyer needs to consider making Outdoor Promotions the primary in the lawsuit. They don't have the cap and they are the ones building and placing the shelters. The biggest problem Clark County Nevada has is not the economy, it isn't education and it isn't even gangs, drugs or crime. It is the purchasing of politicians and the attendant insistence on a few "favors" being granted here and there, the public good be damned. One of the few people who understands what is going on in the RTC in regards to our lethal bus shelters is Steve Miller, a writer for American Mafia.com. Steve writes about how Outdoor Promotions offered a few "free" political ads in exchange for the usual considerations. Apparently those considerations included allowing the shelters to be placed as dangerously as possible. There is an engineering firm conducting yet another "study", even though the staff, the RTC and the advisory committee all know what is needed to be done. This study is nothing more than a delaying tactic so that the public ire can cool down. For you see, the real story, the one that Joe Schoenmann either missed, or wasn't allowed to write by editorial decree, is that, as stated earlier, the price of a himan life isn't that much as far as Clark County, Nevada is concerned; unless, of course, that human life is someone of stature. For, as a well known author once wrote, "Some animals are more equal than others."