RENO’S CITY COUNCIL REAFFIRMS THEIR CIVIC DUTY TO MAKE TRAFFIC WORSE
A casual observer of Reno’s political landscape might innocently conclude that a majority of City Councilmembers are looking after the best interests of their constituents, given the boasting and bragging we hear from those members about what they have supposedly accomplished. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, most Councilmembers seem to pay most attention to the best interests of out-of-state developers as well as ensuring their large campaign contributions continue to flow, and Reno’s residents have no choice but to suffer with the bad consequences of their decisions.
The stretch of S. McCarran between Plumas and Kietzke already has some of the worst traffic congestion in Reno. The intersection of McCarran and Lakeside is rated an “F”, the lowest possible grade. During the morning rush hour, for example, eastbound traffic waiting at the light at Plumas often must wait through one or two traffic light cycles before there is enough space to advance across the intersection and find a spot among the stalled traffic waiting for the light at Lakeside to change. Reno’s rush hours have also expanded — for example, the evening rush hour that used to begin at 5:00 p.m. now starts at 3:00 p.m..
Amazingly, the developer who intends to cram 314 high-rise condominiums after ripping out most of the large trees on the now-vacant site claims that traffic will only improve as a result of their project. Even more amazing is the fact that a majority of Reno’s Councilmembers believed that dubious claim without expressing any doubts or concerns! In reality, 314 dwelling units can easily add more than 600 new vehicles to that area. This is not a walking neighborhood. The nearest grocery stores, drug stores, and bus stops are almost a mile away. Everyone will have a vehicle. In addition, we all know that traffic generated by delivery vehicles has greatly increased due to changes in shopping habits.
During the City Council meeting on April 28th, 2021 to consider our appeals, a number of voicemails containing comments about the project were heard. In some of those voicemails, the callers feigned support for the project because, in their words, traffic would improve. Clearly, those callers were likely paid for those comments and reading off of a script, as no reasonable person would conclude that adding 600 residents to the area would improve traffic. One council member even proclaimed these calls as proof that residents were, “very excited,” about the project.
The former Lakeridge Tennis Club sat directly on S. McCarran between Plumas and Lakeside. The Club’s former general manager has stated that the Club would typically receive 100 to 150 guests per day when it was in operation. The Club shut down in March 2020 due to COVID and never resumed operations. In other words, there has been no traffic in and out of the Club since March 2020.
The developer promoted a half-baked traffic study for their appeal that was carried out without any physical counts of vehicles passing through the immediate area. Instead, they relied on a traffic study generated by a computer algorithm that used data from cell phones passing through a much broader area, and that data was collected the same day and the day immediately preceding Governor Sisolak’s emergency order due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That study was bogus for a number of reasons:
Most people were already aware of the emerging threat of COVID and the impending shut-down, and had already changed their normal driving habits — for example, by working from home, taking time off to help relative prepare, and also making some last minute trips to stores to stock up on food and staples that were rapidly disappearing from the shelves of nearby stores.
The cell-phone data didn’t focus on the intersections of McCarran, Plumas, and Lakeside, but instead looked at a broader area covering the county.
Using cell-phone data massaged by a computer algorithm is no substitute for physically counting the number of vehicles. Instead, using cell phone data is akin to selling your house based on Zillow’s valuation instead of having a real estate agent or professional house appraiser visit your property — it simply can’t be viewed as reliable. The developer might as well have asked a nearby gas station for their total sales for those days as ‘evidence’ of traffic counts.
The developer is adding only a minimal number of on-site parking spaces, which means that more street parking and traffic congestion is inevitable. Councilmembers, in their infinite unwisdom, decided that the project as proposed was A-OK and added absolutely no conditions (such as reducing the number of dwelling units or adding more on-site parking) that could have easily mitigated at least some of these obvious concerns.
Many of the council members seem to only focus on one word in Reno’s Master Plan: infill. Language in Nevada’s statutes, Reno’s Master Plan as well as Reno’s code requires that new projects must conserve and enhance existing neighborhoods, but those pesky requirements were quickly brushed aside in an unending effort to bow down and please Reno’s wealthy developer overlords.
Evacuations during wildfires are a serious concern to the thousands of residents living in the urban-wildland interface nearby. During the recent Pinehaven wildfire, it took over an hour for some folks living south and west of the area to evacuate across McCarran due to stalled traffic. But the results of Council’s decision makes it clear that the safety of residents, and especially the health of those with breathing problems that would suffer during prolonged smoke inhalation, takes a back seat to the goal of keeping greedy developers happy.
This blog post was submitted by Jim, one of the LDC21-00036 Appellants.