Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

Plans for a highway bypass skirting south of Boulder City were on display for all to see at a Tuesday public information meeting. The only thing missing was a plan to cover the $400 million price tag.

The 13-mile bypass proposal has less than $40 million in hand, and a best-case scenario calling for work to start on the first of two phases in 2009 depends upon getting up to $160 million from the state Legislature or other sources.

And a worst-case scenario postpones the second phase, which includes the bulk of the project, to around 2025.

That leaves deciding a realistic timeline up to politicians in Carson City.

"We'll know a lot more at the end of July," after the current Legislature ends, said Glenn Petrenko, the bypass project manager for the Nevada Department of Transportation.

In the meantime, engineers are using what money they have to make U.S. Highwy 93 intersection and signage upgrades, and continue planning and design work on the bypass.

The bypass is among 10 highway megaprojects statewide costing $11 billion that are nearly $4 billion short of funding. A plan put forth by a task force under former Gov. Kenny Guinn, which called for tax hikes and fee increases, was dismissed by new Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has yet to offer an alternate plan.

Some of the roughly 40 people who attended the first hour of Tuesday's three-hour meeting at the Community College of Southern Nevada's Boulder City branch expressed general agreement with the need for a bypass, which would pull traffic off of U.S. 93.

Of particular concern is a traffic spike that's expected after a Hoover Dam bypass bridge opens as soon as late 2010. The bridge is expected to unclog an existing U.S. 93 bottleneck at the dam, but the fear is that without a bypass, the bottleneck will simply move down to Boulder City.

"It's going to be a serious problem, with the traffic that will come when the dam bridge opens," said Jim Douglas of Boulder City, adding that planned bedroom communities in Northern Arizona would only fuel future U.S. 93 traffic.

There also were safety concerns about the existing road. "There's a lot of serious accidents by the Railroad Pass" on U.S. 93, west of Boulder City, said Hank Twigg, 51, of Boulder City.

Although no plan to pay for the road was presented at the meeting, some attendees expressed support for making the bypass a toll road.

Today, Nevada has no toll roads. But the Boulder City Council, U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and various other civic leaders have floated the idea of using tolls on the bypass or other Nevada road projects as a way of expediting construction.

"People using it are paying for it," said Karen Wade, 63, of Henderson. "If I choose to drive through the town (on existing roads), I don't pay for it. If I take the (bypass) short cut, I pay for it."

But some feared tolling the new road would encourage drivers to keep using the existing "free" roads.

"My only thing about a toll road is there's a lot of people who won't pay for it," said Douglas. "They ought to make the trucks pay a toll (using existing roads) through town. That would encourage them" to use the bypass.

There was less fervor for any sort of a tax increase, including a gasoline tax. Though backed by Guinn's task force, the concept has received little popular support as of late.

In 2005, a Review-Journal poll found three of four Nevada voters opposed a nickel-a-gallon gasoline tax boost, even if the money was used solely for new or improved roads. And a AAA survey last year found only 21 percent of drivers nationwide favored a gasoline tax increase for road work, even though 71 percent of those drivers thought more money was needed for traffic projects.

A sampling of Boulder City and Henderson residents appeared to fall in line.

"If you put it up to a vote, most people would turn it down," Twigg said.