Bullhead City Mayor Steve D’Amico stands in front of a new bridge in Bullhead City, Arizona that spans the Colorado River and connects to Laughlin, Nevada Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The bridge is scheduled to open June 7 of this year.
Monday, May 27, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Ronald Tschanz’s 15-mile commute from Fort Mojave, Ariz., to Laughlin for his job at a local gas station at the Nevada-Arizona border community on the Colorado River shouldn’t be this time consuming.
The trip requires driving across the border via the Veterans Memorial Bridge at Avi Resort, and then driving north in heavy traffic for about 30 minutes.
A much easier commute is on the horizon — finally.
Another bridge linking Laughlin and Bullhead City will debut June 7 in a $60 million project that has been talked about by residents for years when federal funding was initially committed for the project in the 1990s.
The new bridge — dubbed the Silver Copper Crossing last week by Clark County, in honor of the two states’ nicknames — will cut drive time for Tschanz and others. About 43,000 people reside in Bullhead City, according to the latest U.S. Census; there are another 8,000 in Laughlin. The bridge at Avi Resort is privately maintained.
“When people are coming in, they won’t have to use this other bridge to go over to Laughlin because that gets pretty jam-packed with traffic a lot,” Tschanz said.
Fencing rises from concrete girders punched into the dirt below, with metal art of brown fish, dark coral and blue birds — all native species to the Colorado River — dotting the sides of the new bridge.
Spanning 724 feet in length, the bridge is about 35 feet above the flowing waterway and has one lane of traffic in each direction, as well as a multiuse trail on the south side for bicyclists, runners and pedestrians. It also has two bridge overlooks and can be restriped to accommodate four lanes of traffic.
Only a short hike south of the bridge is Bullhead City’s Colorado River Nature Center Wildlife Area, with picturesque views of the new structure and the life around it.
On the Arizona side, the bridge connects to Bullhead Parkway, a bypass east of Bullhead City that was extended by half a mile in 2020.
Travelers will be able to ride right over the river and onto a 3.5-mile road into Nevada that connects with Needles Highway, just north of the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation.
It’s a move that officials from both states believe will reduce traffic along the cities’ only bridge at Bullhead Parkway and U.S. Route 95, as well as promote development in the south area of Bullhead City.
“This second bridge spanning the Colorado River has been decades in the making,” Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft, whose district includes Laughlin, said in a news release.
“Its completion will facilitate the flow of traffic and commerce across the river, and I’m looking forward to celebrating this historic milestone with our residents,” he said.
Ferries also transport people across the Colorado River between the two cities, as many of Laughlin’s casino workers live in Bullhead City, said Toby Cotter, city manager of Bullhead City.
Former casino owner Don Laughlin, who died in October, fronted the entire $5 million in construction costs for the area’s first bridge connecting Nevada and Arizona. Laughlin Bridge, which opened in the 1980s and is seven miles from the new bridges, sees an estimated 50,000 residents and visitors cross it each day.
Bullhead City Mayor Steve D’Amico said the Laughlin bridge on holidays can see traffic jams that take hours to navigate.
Cotter remembers early conversations about the second bridge as far back as 1998, when he was the city’s public information officer.
Where it would go and how it would be funded turned the project into a multiyear discussion between city councils, town advisory boards and Clark County commissioners.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Davis Dam closed to vehicle traffic, large trucks were diverted through Bullhead City, and concerns rose about potential wrecks involving big rigs that could shut down Laughlin Bridge.
“It really put a huge inconvenience to our two communities, and so, not only did that really elevate the conversation, but it also just made it even more important that we talk about what we are going to do in the future as we continue to grow,” Cotter said.
The project involved multiple reports and studies, as well as communication among Bullhead City officials, the Nevada Department of Transportation, Arizona Department of Transportation, Clark County and the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, whose territory sits below the bridge’s entrance on the Nevada side.
“It’s hard to build a bridge over a federal waterway. It’s hard environmentally, culturally, biologically,” Cotter said.
Federal funding was first committed for the bridge in the 1990s, Clark County officials said.
The federal government contributed $20.9 million, while the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada put up $34.1 million, Bullhead City paid $4.5 million and Clark County added $1 million.
Cotter said Bullhead City also spent $10 million on infrastructure for the Arizona side of the bridge.
Construction began in November 2021.
Building the bridge wasn’tjust about connecting the casino workers in Bullhead City to their jobs across the water. It’s also crucial to provide Laughlin’s residents a way to access services and businesses in Bullhead City, Cotter said.
Laughlin is a casino town, and it lacks some basic resources, such as a grocery store and health care, D’Amico said.
The second bridge will allow people to skirt traffic at Laughlin Bridge and frequent the shopping center on the Arizona side.
D’Amico and Cotter expect accelerated development of the area with the addition of the second bridge. The shopping center at one point was “starting to die down,” but more businesses are moving into the area, D’Amico said.
For the residents of Bullhead City and Laughlin, the bridge can’t come soon enough.
“I wish it would’ve been sooner because Highway 95 is getting more like a freeway now,” Tschanz said. “It’s gonna help out a lot of people.”
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