Unfunded road repairs needed across Las Vegas Valley

Nevada’s bridges and highways are considered among the best maintained in the country, but Clark County motorists likely drive on a state road deemed deficient.

The streets and spans aren’t in danger of collapsing, but funding shortfalls could delay necessary upgrades, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.

Of the $450 million backlog of work to improve state-owned streets and highways in Nevada, about $10 million is needed to fix some of the state’s most heavily traveled roads, NDOT officials said. The vast majority of the work is needed on rural and low-volume roads that see fewer than 1,600 vehicles daily.

Still, four bridges and 33 street sections across Clark County are on NDOT’s unfunded list of repairs.

Roughly 122,400 vehicles travel daily across the U.S. Highway 95 bridge over Eastern Avenue in downtown Las Vegas, according to NDOT’s list of spans in need of repair. Nearby, sections of Washington Avenue and Bonanza Road near Las Vegas Boulevard are among the downtown-area streets in need of repair by NDOT, along with a section of Sahara Avenue between Rancho and Paradise roads.

In the midst of those rough roads, construction is underway on Project Neon, the $1 billion effort to redesign and add traffic lanes along Interstate 15 from the U.S. 95 interchange to Sahara Avenue.

“NDOT believed the best location to spend our funds is at our busiest interchange in the state — the Las Vegas Spaghetti Bowl and areas south,” NDOT spokesman Tony Illia said.

NDOT’s bridges were ranked the best nationwide for a fourth consecutive year, according to an analysis released last year by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.

Of the 2,008 bridges maintained or receiving assistance from NDOT, only 31 are considered to be in poor condition but a $133 million shortfall for upgrades means they may not be getting all needed improvements.

“We utilize federal and state transportation funding to make important enhancements to keep Nevada’s bridges the nation’s best and, most importantly, to keep Nevada motorists safe on our bridges,” NDOT Director Rudy Malfabon said in a prepared statement.

Federal laws require all bridges, freeway overpasses and other structures to undergo assessments at least once every two years. This led to $17 million in repairs for 27 bridges across Nevada in 2015 and 2016, NDOT officials said.

The inspection data are used to determine a span’s durability, in which age often plays a factor. Nearly 440 of the state-owned bridges were built more than 50 years ago, leading to much-needed rehabilitation to keep them up to current standards, Illia said.

While it doesn’t mean that the structures are unsafe, it could mean that the older bridges need new decks, rails and other support improvements.

Some of the major improvements planned this year include an $11 million project on U.S. Highway 93 near the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas and a $4.6 million upgrade along Charleston Boulevard in Las Vegas.

Contact Art Marroquin at amarroquin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Follow @AMarroquin_LV on Twitter.