Timeline solidifies for major I-15 project in downtown Las Vegas

By Richard N. Velotta

Thursday, June 13, 2013 | 8 p.m.

State transportation leaders are confident that construction will begin by the second quarter of 2015 on the $1.8 billion Project Neon that will ease access to downtown Las Vegas and revamp the Spaghetti Bowl interchange with high-occupancy vehicle flyover lanes.

Rudy Malfabon, director of the Nevada Transportation Department, told the Clark County Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday that a request for proposals would be issued for the project in February and a contractor would be selected by August 2014.

Malfabon said there would be “an aggressive construction schedule” after utilities are relocated and the design is completed in late 2014 and early 2015.

A lengthy property acquisition process for 50 properties totaling 93 acres has delayed the project.

The project will include 13 lane miles of bridges, a new access to Wall Street and improvements to Charleston and Martin Luther King boulevards and Grand Central Parkway. The project is expected to double the capacity of the freeway interchange to a half-million cars a day.

The commission also received an update to legislation signed into law that enables the Clark County Commission to initiate fuel-tax indexing. If approved by a two-thirds majority of the county commission and voters on the November 2016 ballot, the fuel tax would be increased at the same rate of inflation.

RTC General Manager Tina Quigley said indexing would cost the average car owner an additional $16.35 a year in fuel taxes in the first year, $33.64 the second and $51.95 the third. Revenue generated by the tax would produce an estimated $700 million in bonding capacity for the construction of road and highway projects.