Southern Nevada Strong (SNS) is the first federally recognized comprehensive regional plan for Southern Nevada. Planning for SNS was funded by a U.S. Housing and Urban Development Sustainable Communities Initiative Planning Grant to the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition (SNRPC) in 2012. After 3 years of research and planning, and with input captured through hundreds of outreach events and stakeholder group meetings, the SNPRC and member agencies adopted Southern Nevada Strong as the guiding Regional Policy Plan.

In 2015, the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) and SNRPC agreed that the RTC would administer the regional plan and dedicate a team of staff to support the implementation of the plan throughout the community. At that time, the RTC created the SNS Steering Committee, which included representatives from each of the member agencies that sat on the SNS Consortia Committee, which oversaw the development of the original plan.

As the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), the RTC is responsible for overseeing the transportation planning process for Southern Nevada. This includes forecasting future housing and employment growth, and modeling the transportation investments needed over the next 20 years to manage congestion and improve air quality. RTC also administers Southern Nevada’s Regional Policy Plan, Southern Nevada Strong (SNS). SNS identifies a vision for the region’s future inclusive of planning, creating, and sustaining neighborhoods where residents can access quality education, housing choices, good-paying jobs, and transportation options. In this role, RTC supports partner agencies that implement SNS with research and technical assistance. All of these activities are conducted as part of a process that includes extensive community outreach for all studies and plans to collect the priorities and input from Southern Nevada residents to ensure all projects and programs align with the regional vision.

As the administrator of the SNS Regional Plan, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) is working to:

• Raise awareness of long-term planning goals,
• Provide technical support and research for implementation of the regional plan,
• Encourage regional collaboration and coordination among a diverse group of community stakeholders that are implementing the Regional Plan, and
• Engage the public in discussions on important community planning issues.