Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.
Gov. Kenny Guinn rolled out a list of $195 million in improvements slated for one of Las Vegas' central transportation corridors during a press conference this morning.
Speaking at the Nevada Department of Transportation's offices for the U.S. 95 expansion project, Guinn pointed out that the number of vehicles on the road has grown from 25,000 daily in 1971 to nearly 200,000 daily in 2001. He said a once controversial widening project that began in 2000 and is scheduled to finish in 2006 will continue.
Guinn urged motorists to explore alternate routes while construction along the road continues.
So far $47 million has been spent to widen the highway from the Rainbow Curve to Craig Road and rebuild interchanges at Valley View and Decatur boulevards and the bridge at Torrey Pines Drive to accommodate future widening. Construction is under way for a $42 million rebuilding of the Rainbow Curve and a $6 million reworking of the Rancho Drive interchange, Guinn said.
Guinn said the construction would be expedited. He said this year NDOT will commit $195 million, mostly in federal funding, "with the goal of completing the largest road project in Nevada's history by the end of 2006."
"With total costs over $350 million, this is the largest transportation project ever in Nevada," he said.
When it's finished the highway will have 10 lanes from the Spaghetti Bowl to the Rainbow Curve and 6 lanes from the Rainbow Curve to Craig Road.
Guinn made a special appeal for residents and motorists to be patient as construction continues. He said interruptions would be kept to a minimum, but people need to "look out for the orange cones."
The project, a decade in development, has not been without controversy. Many of the hundreds of residents in and near the path of the highway widening opposed the project. Two years ago the local branch of the Sierra Club filed suit in federal court, arguing that NDOT and the U.S. Department of Transportation failed in pre-construction environmental assessments to adequately study the environmental effects that heavier traffic would have on residents.
That suit continues, the Sierra Club's Jane Feldman said.
A growing number of scientific studies show that widened highways increase traffic and that contributes to disease nearby, she said.
"The expansion is a bad idea because they did not look at all the health risks," Feldman said. "They should have looked at this stuff three, four years ago when this was in the design stage, and they just didn't."
The Sierra Club nationally and locally has argued that building larger highways only encourages more automobile traffic, and that the money would be better spent on mass transit.
But Guinn said the widening will reduce accidents and improve safety on U.S. 95. A total of 36 lane-miles will be added to the highway, including 26 miles for car-pooling and buses, he said.
The project also will reduce congestion on local streets, he said.
"Drivers will be less likely to take a local neighborhood road shortcut to avoid currently crowded freeways and major arterials if freeway and major roadway capacity if improved," he said.
Sound walls will go up along residential areas that border the highway, he said. The sound walls will affect 6,000 homes, three schools and two parks.
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