Transportation officials rule out options to ease I-15 traffic

By Brian Eckhouse

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 | 8:46 p.m.

Interstate 15 along the Strip won’t be a "double-decker" freeway in five years – or maybe ever.

A representative of Jacobs Engineering, a consultant hired by the Nevada Department of Transportation to consider ways to ease traffic along the I-15 "resort corridor" between the southern beltway and the Spaghetti Bowl, announced at a public meeting Wednesday evening that such a structure would cut into McCarran International Airport’s air space.

And so goes a long-discussed way to cut worsening traffic on the freeway. Administrators of the transportation department say the freeway can’t handle more than 10 lanes in both directions – not including auxiliary lanes – along that stretch.

So other remedies will have to be considered. Jacobs whittled a list of possibilities to 26 and suggested short-term and long-term improvements.

Among the more immediate measures, Jacobs recommends making Valley View Boulevard an eight-lane thoroughfare near the beltway and building an I-15 overpass – not interchange – at Sunset Road.

About 25 people attended the public meeting at Clark High School in Las Vegas.