Traffic will get far worse first

As bad as traffic is here, there are many places not that far away where it is much worse.

That's not good news for county officials trying to drum up some interest in raising money to fund the 5-year transportation plan.

The amount of traffic a road carries is graded like a school child, with A being the best and F being the worst.

Level of service A means you could safely take a nap on a road's centerline while level of service F means you could take that nap behind the wheel while waiting for the traffic to move.

Douglas County's transportation plan is designed to provide a medium amount of traffic at the county's intersections. That's called level of service C.

The problem is that for many of our residents who've resided elsewhere, level of service F is an improvement and to accurately reflect their experiences in traffic would require traveling down the alphabet a bit.

Compared to Reno, the traffic in Carson Valley is light and pleasant. Compared to Las Vegas, Reno is a motorists' paradise and compared to Los Angeles, Vegas has a long ways to go to experience true traffic hell.

That means raising taxes to pay for new roads may be a hard sell in Douglas County. Voters have shown no interest in taxing themselves and county commissioners have never shown an interest in raising taxes against residents' wishes.

Traffic in Carson Valley is going to have to get a lot worse before residents are ready to accept higher taxes to fix the roads.