Sunday, August 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: The Sierra Club Memorial Traffic Jam

Greens block U.S. Highway 95 widening

We see where the always sensible justices of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals got busy last week -- just before hopping the cable car down the hill for their yerba mate and hemp nectar at Urban Forage, topped off by the always tasty zucchini-and-portobello burrito at Haight Street's All You Knead -- and ordered a delay of many months in the overdue widening of U.S. 95 until it can hear the Sierra Club's claim that widening the urban Nevada highway will, um ... cause cancer.

Really.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro, who actually knows where Las Vegas is, threw out this lawsuit in March, ruling federal officials were "reasonably thorough" in drawing up their long overdue plans to widen the congested road from the Spaghetti Bowl to the Rainbow Curve.

(The road carried 25,000 cars a day in the early 1970s; it currently carries 200,000 cars and trucks a day -- and the number is expected to rise to 300,000 by 2010.)

Attorneys for the government sensibly argued at the time there are no credible testing methods to determine whether the Sierra Club's argument -- that the construction work could sharply increase cancer among those living near the highway -- is true.

The 9th Circuit justices didn't have any trouble explaining why they find this argument credible ... because they didn't bother to say they found it credible. In fact, they gave no rationale for their decision, at all. They just ordered the $370-million lane-widening project delayed -- a move which will probably cost 300 jobs -- while the Sierra Club's absurd and frivolous lawsuit is heard, likely sometime near the end of the year.

"The main issue for us is the health of residents near U.S. 95," explains Sierra Club attorney Joanne Spalding.

Oh, please. Since traffic death rates are statistically lower on limited access roads such as U.S. 95, and the delays mean more local residents will instead commute to work on local surface streets, more people will die in traffic accidents (statistically) because of this lawsuit ... before we even consider the health effects of smog from the ongoing traffic jams thus perpetuated.

"The irony of the Sierra Club delaying this project is that they're delaying our ability to mitigate the air quality issue," notes Greg Bortolin, a spokesman for the governor.

What the Sierra Club is really up to was revealed when Ms. Spalding added, "We're really sympathetic to people who want to get to where they're going. It would be nice if they had ways to get around, other than going by car."

In fact, the Sierra Club would have gone to court, claiming the highway widening would endanger local populations of threatened squirrels or snub-nosed cave bats, if it could have found any.

The Sierra Club hates economic growth -- and it especially loathes automobiles and the personal freedom of choice they represent. Instead, these people actually believe that if they can hamstring sensible traffic improvements long enough, someone, somewhere, will wave a magic wand and cause Las Vegas commuters to get to and from work under our broiling sun by using a multibillion-dollar "light rail system," bicycle paths, or some other "less polluting option."

You know those "Your tax dollars at work" signs the Department of Transportation puts up, from time to time? NDOT should immediately erect huge signs along the stretch of congested highway in question, declaring, "Current congestion exacerbated due to lawsuit filed by your friendly local Sierra Club; call Conservation Chair Jane Feldman at 732-7750 to express your appreciation."