$173 million overhaul envisions a safer Boulder Highway for Las Vegas drivers

Traffic zooms past riders at bus stops and pedestrians along the sunbaked concrete lining Boulder Highway, which stretches from Interstate 11 in far southeast Henderson all the way to downtown Las Vegas.

The southern stretch in Henderson is filled with faded buildings and shops, while further north are casinos that capture what Las Vegas might have looked like before the glitz and glam of the Strip captured everyone’s attention.

But Boulder Highway has become a hot spot — and not only because of the region’s scorching summer heat. It’s also a hot spot for pedestrian fatalities.

Reimagine Boulder Highway proposes a new road, one that would bring wider sidewalks, more greenery, elevated bicycle lanes and a center-lane rapid bus system to one of the deadliest roads in Nevada.

“Our main goal of this project is safety,” Steven Conner, a senior engineer with the city of Henderson, said during a news event Monday. “I think our goal as a city is to be the first one to start a project with rapid transit, and hopefully everyone else follows.”

The Henderson City Council today will be asked to approve a partnership that includes the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, the city of Las Vegas and city of Henderson for construction funding. The project cost is estimated at $173 million, according to the Henderson City Council agenda.

Some of that money has already been secured through grants like the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning program, which was funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.

Improvements to Boulder Highway will stretch from Charleston Boulevard in Las Vegas to Wagon Wheel Drive in Henderson; the Henderson portion of the project stretches from Tulip Falls Drive south to Wagon Wheel.

The changes are also supported by the Nevada Department of Transportation, Clark County and the city of Las Vegas.

The 15.4-mile Boulder Highway was initially built in 1931 across what was then a mostly rural part of the valley to connect downtown Las Vegas with Railroad Pass in Henderson, but it has since become a popular thoroughfare with “tens of thousands of houses, commercial lots, transit riders and daily vehicles,” the RTC says on its website.

In 2017, the RTC conducted a study of the Boulder Highway corridor to “develop a plan that would identify and analyze potential improvements to Boulder Highway.”

Over the past six years, 25% of the fatalities in Henderson have been along Boulder Highway, Conner said Monday.

The report revealed a number of issues, including poor sidewalk design and lack of accessibility for able-bodied and disabled pedestrians; large, complex street crossings; limited bus stops; increased exposure to weather; and inconsistent lighting. among others.

The project will break up the six-lane thoroughfare into two lanes each direction with a center bus lane, bicycle path and wider sidewalks on each side, according to the RTC.

The initial phase of the project, which is estimated to take about two years, will bring improved lighting fixtures, business access lanes and a multimodal lane exclusive to buses, bicycles and right-turning traffic.

The next part of the phase — dubbed “Complete Streets” — will bring widened sidewalks; green spaces that provide a buffer between the road and bicycle and pedestrian lanes; more pedestrian crossings and median “refugee” areas; and better lighting. Work is expected to take anywhere from two to five years.

The final phase, also referred to as “Phase 2: Ultimate,” completes the project by creating multidirectional cycle tracks on each side of the roadway for bicyclists, establishing those green spaces — called “linear parks” — and moving the transit lanes along with new bus shelters to the center of the roadway.

This portion is estimated to take over five years to finish, according to the RTC.

Erin Breen, director of Road Equity Alliance, said the Reimagine Boulder Highway project has been 10 years in the making for her as a road safety advocate and that she’s excited it is finally coming to fruition.

Breen and Road Equity Alliance have called for improvements to Boulder Highway since 2015, when they surveyed residents after 12 “vulnerable” pedestrians died on the roadway the prior year. Pedestrian fatalities have only gotten worse, she added.

The center-running bus lanes and stops are especially a “game changer” to the current six-lane highway that many pedestrians must sprint across if they want to make the light — or, their bus.

Because the bus lanes and their stops will be in the middle of Boulder Highway instead of on either side, the risk of exposure for a pedestrian is cut in half, she explained. There will also be more crossing areas with the addition of these bus stops, which could mean fewer people running across the highway in unmarked areas, and “360-degree” bus shades to protect riders from the elements.

Breen said the Reimagine Boulder Highway project would be “the first project in Southern Nevada that truly addresses every road user and becomes an absolute, complete street.”

The project will break ground later this year, and Conner said officials don’t believe an increase of traffic jams will occur, even despite coinciding with other construction such as the 215 Beltway widening project.

“It will lead the way, we hope, for other streets all across Clark County to be improved in the same fashion,” Breen said. “The increase for transit-oriented development, it’s all part of that; it’s the biking, it’s the pedestrian, it’s the bus rapid transit that really is rapid, so this will be the first time we get to take all of that from paper and put it into reality.

“I couldn’t be more excited for everyone that lives in Henderson, (and) I couldn’t be more excited for the possibilities for Southern Nevada,” she said.

 

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