Metropolitan Area Express BRT Line
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| MAX Line: Las Vegas Blvd North | |
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| An Irisbus Civis serving the MAX line at the DTC. | |
| Info | |
| Type | Bus Rapid Transit |
| System | Citizens Area Transit |
| Status | Active Service Route |
| Locale | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Terminals | Downtown Transportation Center Craig Road South Station (Nellis Air Force Base) |
| No. of stations | 22 |
| Service routes | 501 |
| Daily ridership | 197,411 (as of July, 2007) |
| Operation | |
| Opened | June 30, 2004 |
| Owner | Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada |
| Operator(s) | Veolia Transportation |
| Rolling stock | 10 Irisbus Civis vehicles |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 7 mi |
Metropolitan Area Express, or MAX is a bus rapid transit (BRT) line owned by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and operated by Veolia Transportation. MAX began operations on June 30, 2004 as the pilot BRT project for the United States Department of Transportation.[citation needed] The line is currently serviced between the Downtown Transportation Center and North Las Vegas.
The route currently runs on a 12-minute frequency during the day, 20 minutes at night using only 10 vehicles purchased from Irisbus in France. These vehicles can hold a passenger load of 131 passengers.[citation needed] All fare payment is done off the vehicle at the stations. Special ticket vending machines are at every station where passengers must pay fare before boarding as there is no fare box on board. Once on board, fare enforcement officers are at hand to check bus passes which are issued by the TVM upon payment. This BRT service was chosen by the RTC over light rail service due in part to costs of building and maintaining light rail. The RTC felt it was better to operate rubber tire transit rather than to have an expensive light rail system that would be too much to operate.
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[edit] Safety Record
All operators that drive MAX vehicles are required to have 2 years of preventable-free service.[citation needed] This means that a driver cannot have a preventable incident or accident for 2 years while driving for Citizens Area Transit, the fixed route system also owned by the RTC and operated by Veolia. Then, operators are taken through training once again to be "MAX Certified". The MAX service is unique in that it has gone its entire service life without a preventable accident.[citation needed] Although there have been accidents involving MAX vehicles, it has been determined in each incident that the operator was not at fault.[citation needed]
[edit] Expansion/ACE BRT
After 3 years of service, MAX is moving forward with expansion. In August 2007, the RTC hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the new ACE BRT system, which will be similar to the MAX BRT system, with the only differences being: using different type vehicles (MAX uses Iribus Civis, ACE will use Wright Group Streetcar LRT) and different station designs. Basically, it will be one BRT system under two different names. The first ACE line will be named "ACE Downtown Connector" and will travel from the World Market Center, Downtown Las Vegas, Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Strip, before finally terminating at McCarran Airport. Construction is scheduled to be completed sometime early 2009 with operations starting in summer 2009.[citation needed]
During construction for this route, construction is scheduled to begin on "ACE Boulder Highway" which will travel from Downtown Las Vegas, down Boulder Highway into Downtown Henderson. The RTC is looking at even further expansion with planned ACE routes on North 5th Street, Sahara Avenue, South Strip Corridor, Flamingo Road, and Maryland Parkway.[citation needed] According to the RTC website, the ACE lines are scheduled to be up and running by, Boulder Highway (2009), Sahara Avenue (2011), and North 5th Street (2010).[citation needed]
As of March 2008, the pavement has been completed on Grand Central Parkway, NORTH between Bonneville and F Street, with the colored cement bus lane in the middle of the road. Construction is now on Grand Central SOUTH of Bonneville. Also as of March 2008, a few of the new ACE buses were already built.
