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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The city of Las Vegas paid $800,000 to a Henderson engineering company, Atkins Realis, for a road safety study. It started Dec. 2024.
What has resulted from this $800,000 deal outlined in a 47-page contract for the Vision Zero?
Are there new protected bike lanes in the city of Las Vegas? Is there construction of paved trails to create a network of paths to lower the danger for walkers and bicyclists in the city.
In 2024, a national bicycle organization, Boulder, Colorado-based People For Bikes, placed the city of Las Vegas at the 39th percentile for bicycling in U.S. cities.
Even with hundreds of thousands of public dollars spent on a study, in 2025 People For Bikes ranked Las Vegas 2043rd out of 2901 U.S. cities, dropping Las Vegas to the 29th percentile.
That is a dismal ranking. And nine pedestrians have already been killed from Jan. 1 to Feb. 17 in the METRO Police jurisdiction.
Vision Zero also includes Clark County as a stakeholder and the local transportation agency, RTC, has also awarded its own contract on Vision Zero, said Jace Radke, a city of Las Vegas spokesman.
LVSportsBiz.com inspected the contract between Las Vegas and Atkins. It includes work on everything from $4,889.95 for “message from the mayor or city manager” to $61,822 for Vision Zero website updates.
It should be noted that the city’s public works director, Joey Paskey, worked for Atkins from 2010-2018 before starting to work for the city of Las Vegas. In government, it’s not uncommon for government staffers to come from private companies that do business with the person’s government agency.
It’s also common for cities the size of Las Vegas to have a network of protected bicycle lanes and paved trails for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Not many bicycle infrastructure projects like paved trails and protected bike lanes have been done as a giant regional network in the Las Vegas/Clark County area. There’s not a regional network of them — just disjointed segments here and there. The neighboring city of Henderson has a much better bicycle infrastructure program than Las Vegas with a paved trail network.
Radke pointed out one good piece of new infrastructure: a bike/pedestrian bridge over Summerlin Parkway to Kellogg-Zaher Sports Complex. This bridge safely connects the south side of Summerlin Parkway to a major regional sports complex.
And the city is working on its first protected bike lane as part of the Stewart Avenue project in downtown.
He also noted Las Vegas is initiating a citywide bicycle study to identify gaps in connectivity. One major problem for both the city and the county — there is no bicycle/ped paved trail or protected bike lane corridor linking downtown Las Vegas and the Strip. In fact, the hotel owners — not the county — seem to run the Strip and the hotels have hardly any bike racks at their buildings.
A major road design issue in Las Vegas/Clark County is that many roads are engineered for driver speed with bicyclists and walkers as an afterthought.
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At Clark County, Public Works Director Denis Cederburg has earned a reputation of designing car-focused roads engineered to move motorized vehicles as fast as possible. People inside the county government community privately describe him as a “dinosaur” for designing roads for car users, and not bicyclists and walkers, too.
Clark County responded to our request for comments on the topic. Its statement emailed Wednesday:
“Clark County Public Works engineers county roads to safety standards established by the state and federal government. The Department works to make safety improvements to existing roads as needed and works in partnership with the community to construct roadways that meet the needs of the public. The Department has focused on engineering complete streets where appropriate in our new development areas. Safety is and will remain the focus of Clark County Public Works.” That’s via Jennifer Cooper, the county’s chief communications and strategy officer.
The county also cited other pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements:
- Both the Starr Avenue, Las Vegas Blvd to Bermuda Road and Warm Springs Road – Decatur to Dean Martin & Valley View projects feature detached & protected bike lanes.
- Multiple pedestrian crossing flashers have been activated in the past six months, including across Spring Mountain near Arville; Convention Center at Channel 8 Drive; and Grand Canyon and Rochelle; with more to come: Vegas Valley east of Parkdale; Lone Mountain and Conquistador; and a pedestrian/horse-rider flasher at Warm Springs and Arville.
- As for trails, the county says it has projects underway to bring more trails and connectivity to the Valley, including the Western Beltway Trail Improvements at Fort Apache Road/Peace Way and the Charleston Boulevard undercrossing;
- Three new trail bridges being added as part of the CC-215/Summerlin Parkway Interchange project, which will connect the Beltway Trail to the City of Las Vegas Trail; and the James Regional Sports Park – Trail Undercrossing which will connect existing trails in the west to the park trail that is currently under construction.
This topic is hardly new in Las Vegas/Clark County. These safety program names over the years have ranged from Safe Streets to Zero Fatalities.
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The primary beneficiary has been engineering firms like Atkins that make money off the studies, but residents want integrated trail systems and protected bicycle lanes like other metro areas in the U.S. There’s little doubt Las Vegas/Clark County is late to the game here.
One exceptional case is Fort Apache Road in the southwest valley that was rebuilt with a wide bicycle lane — an example that has to be duplicated on roads all over Clark County.
We reached out to RTC with emails and LVSportsBiz.com actually visited the RTC building next to the Clark County government center. But a security guard said he would not contact anyone at RTC because LVSportsBiz.com did not have an appointment. Radke said RTC awarded a Vision Zero contract for the Vegas Valley and LVSportsBiz.com wants RTC to reveal what it paid and who it paid. These are public records.
PSA