Friday, Aug. 2, 2002 | 9:17 a.m.
Written comments should be submitted by 5 p.m., Friday, Aug. 9, to Daryl N. James, P.E., Chief Environmental Services Division, Nevada Department of Transportation, 1263 S. Stewart St., Carson City, NV 89712.Ron Hughes is back at the water park with his grandkids.
But he has given up fighting the $60 million widening of St. Rose Parkway, a six-mile stretch of road between Interstate 15 and I-215 that has been known more recently as Lake Mead Drive, State Route 146, or simply as the Henderson cutoff.
The widening project, planned to handle increased traffic in the southeast part of the Las Vegas Valley through 2024, will make St. Rose one of the widest roadways in the state, at least for a couple years. It soon will be joined in that category by portions of Eastern Avenue, Sunset Road and Horizon Ridge Parkway, state officials say.
"Originally there were no sound walls at all in the plans," Hughes said. "So probably if we hadn't put up such a stink, they wouldn't have done anything. So I guess we got something."
But Hughes wanted fewer lanes. Residents on the south side of the road, who today have views of the Las Vegas Valley, are still fighting the sound walls they say they never wanted.
After several hearings held by state Department of Transportation officials, however, public discussion is drawing to a close. Residents have until next Friday to submit written comments on the project.
Kent Cooper, NDOT assistant director, said design plans could still change to accommodate residents' needs, but he expects to break ground by January 2003.
"In the Las Vegas Valley, unlike in other parts of the country, we've never overbuilt anything," Cooper said. "We're just hoping this new facility will last 20 years."
Five years ago, when Southfork's 1,200 homes, including some four-plexes, went up for sale, the land south of St. Rose was open desert. The intersection with Eastern, which today is jammed with cars from all directions, didn't even have a traffic light.
Today, more than 12,000 cars travel St. Rose each day, many coming from master-planned communities Anthem and Seven Hills. As the city develops another 6,200 acres annexed from Clark County and the Bureau of Land Management, traffic will increase. NDOT projects daily traffic of 73,000 vehicles by 2024.
Not everyone buys those numbers. Gerry Perry, past president of a Southfork neighborhood association, says a state official told her the roadway would actually generate more noise if it was built to six rather than eight lanes.
"Now is there an engineer out there who can explain that?" she said.
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