Clark County councilors press C TRAN on who would pay $20M-a-year light-rail operating costs

Clark County Council held a work session on C TRAN operations and potential costs tied to the Interstate Bridge replacement (IBR) project, where transit staff laid out an estimated $21.8 million annual increase in operations-and-maintenance (O&M) costs associated with the project and described local funding options that could be tapped to cover Washington’s share.

C TRAN Deputy Chief Executive Officer Scott Peterson said the IBR locally preferred alternative adopted in 2022 initially prohibited C TRAN from paying light-rail O&M costs, with one exception for station security. Peterson told the council the C TRAN board amended that language in November and the board will reconsider the change at its March meeting.

The modification matters because C TRAN has remaining voter-approved sales-tax authority — up to 0.9 percent under state law — and staff said the agency has 0.2 percentage points of that authority available. "For every one-tenth [of a percent] we're getting about $9,000,000," Peterson said, and using a full one-tenth could cover a substantial portion of the Washington-side O&M estimate.

Why it matters: the FTA Capital Investment Grant (CIG) process, a key federal discretionary program that could contribute to capital costs, evaluates both project justification and local financial commitment. TriMet and C TRAN officials said FTA will review whether local agencies can sustain the additional service without compromising existing service — a factor that affects…