Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Driver alert: Interstate 11 at Railroad Pass to open Tuesday

 Interstate 11 Construction

John Locher / AP

In this May 19, 2017, file photo, a man works on the Southern Nevada portion of U.S. Interstate 11 near Boulder City.

One of the final portions of the $83 million first phase of the Interstate 11 project will open next week.

The remaining portion of Railroad Pass Interchange, including the loop ramp access to northbound I-11 traffic, will open at noon Tuesday, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation. The first portion opened in August.

The first phase plan called for a new four-lane concrete interstate freeway between Silverline Road and Foothill Drive in Henderson. The remaining initial segment of Interstate 11, south of the interchange, will open in early April.

The project corridor sees 34,000 vehicles per day.

The loop ramps access opening comes on the heels of a 2-mile long, two-lane northbound portion of Interstate 11, from Foothill Drive in Henderson to the U.S. 95 interchange in Boulder City, that opened late last month.

The second phase, a $235 million, 12.5-mile stretch of I-11 through Boulder City to the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge near Hoover Dam is scheduled to open by October.

Once complete, motorists will be able to bypass the main street of Boulder City, where U.S. 93 traffic tends to back up at the light at Nevada Way and Buchanan Boulevard.

After the first two phases in Nevada are complete, attention will turn to Arizona’s portion, where a more than 200-mile portion to Phoenix will be constructed. The Arizona Department of Transportation is in the Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement portion of their process, which lasts until November 2019.

Ultimately, the goal of the I-11 project is to stretch from Mexico to Canada, as outlined in the North American Free Trade Agreement and identified in the CANAMEX Corridor.