The Challenge: Meeting Nevada's Growing Transportation Needs

In Nevada, as in most states, the interstate highways, state roads and bridges are in need of repair, reconstruction or widening. Aging infrastructure and growing traffic congestion in the Las Vegas Valley is forcing the state to find new ways to increase the capacity of existing infrastructure while coping with a transportation funding deficit estimated at billions of dollars. Funding sources traditionally used to pay for transportation infrastructure comes from the federal government and state and local taxes, including the gasoline tax. We can no longer count on the federal government to finance major new projects, and revenue from the gas tax continues to decline due in part to more efficient vehicles. A modern transportation system is essential to Nevada's ability to attract visitors, move people and goods and provide good family-wage jobs. In these uncertain economic times, Nevada is left to search for innovative funding strategies to keep up with the transportation needs of our state's ever-growing population.

The Possible Solution: The Pioneer Program

The State Transportation Board authorized the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) to explore the possibility of using innovative financing and construction methods to help solve Nevada's growing transportation and congestion problems. In response, NDOT developed the Pioneer Program, a solution-oriented transportation-financing initiative designed to ensure prompt delivery of needed projects, decrease traffic congestion and provide a more efficient transportation system. The Pioneer Program will help bridge the gap between available taxpayer funding and our state's transportation needs by enhancing NDOT's ability to form public-private partnerships. However, legislation is required to fully implement the program. These partnerships usually include the greater assumption of risk by the private partner, rather than taxpayers, along with specified responsibilities and performance and quality assurances to the taxpayer. While each entity shares in the risks and rewards, the involved government partner maintains control and ownership of the project and sets the standards under which the private partner must build, maintain and return the facility.