Cars and trucks move along U.S. Highway 95 amid construction detours at Rancho Drive on Friday, the same day local and state transportation officials told members of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission that they can help Southern Nevada by cutting red tape that slows projects. Photo by Sara Tramiel/Review-Journal

Federal rules and bureaucratic hurdles are preventing highway builders in Nevada and elsewhere from keeping up with explosive traffic growth, Nevada's highway chief told a federal panel Friday.

"We want to keep up with it, but we're not keeping up with it," Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, testified to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in Las Vegas.

Martinovich said regulations and required environmental studies mean that projects such as the widening of U.S. Highway 95 in the northwest Las Vegas Valley can take 10 years in moving from concept to construction, years longer than she believes is necessary. The U.S. 95 project is expected to be finished at the end of the year.

Environmental studies alone can take up to five years to conclude, she said.

"There are a lot of (federally mandated) activities that have to go on" when planning a project, Martinovich said. "What it means is, it takes millions of (extra) dollars and so much time spent before we put something specific on the ground. Our customers don't understand it. They don't see it. They want to see something on the ground.

"Do all these steps need to be taken on every project?" she said.

Panel member Maria Cino, the deputy U.S. transportation secretary, summarized Martinovich's plight: "We have good intentions, but by the time we start (road work), we're already behind."

"Exactly," Martinovich said.

The federal panel's self-stated mission is to examine the condition and future needs of the nation's roads and railways, and explore alternatives to replace or supplement gasoline taxes that typically pay for such projects.

Las Vegas is one of nine cities where the commission is hosting meetings and gathering input before reporting back to Congress later this year. The Las Vegas area also has been one of the fastest-growing areas of the nation over the past two decades.

"I think the commission felt it was very, very important to see an area of the country that's really growing and expanding," said Jack Schenendorf, a Washington, D.C., attorney serving as the commission's vice chairman.

The commission's chairwoman, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, did not attend Friday's hearing.

The issue of project funding was only lightly touched upon at the hearing, though there's a general consensus from transportation officials both locally and nationwide that alternative funding sources need to be found.

"We need to be bolder than we presently are," Cino said. "We have to be more creative. There won't be enough money, even with what you're putting on the table today."

Cino did not specify what solutions are possible, but last year in Boulder City she suggested that some sort of tolling or public-private partnerships should be considered for road work.

The start of Friday's session focused largely on federal mandates and their unintended consequences, such as in the case of the widening of Blue Diamond Road, also known as state Route 160, which is now under way.

It took eight years for that plan to move from concept to construction because of regulatory mandates. In the meantime, traffic volume tripled and crashes became commonplace as residential development along the road outpaced road work.

The latest deadly crash on Route 160 was Thursday night, when a 34-year-old Pahrump woman died in a wreck between Las Vegas and Pahrump, a growing bedroom community in Nye County.

The woman, whose name was not immediately released, was driving north toward Pahrump when her car drifted into the center median before veering toward the outside shoulder and flipping over slightly before 9:30 p.m., according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.

Martinovich didn't suggest ignoring environmental requirements but said it might be wise to create a "checklist" of conditions that would allow states to opt out of steps that appear irrelevant or unnecessary because of location or other factors.

"Time is money. Our customers deserve the courtesy of us moving forward and making decisions. We consider federal agencies to be our partners," she said. "We also want them to interpret the laws to facilitate us and help us, and not to hinder."

Martinovich said federal officials reviewing road plans should have to adhere to strict time lines in authorizing projects, or allow work to proceed.

"If it (a road plan) didn't afford a panic-attack look at it, maybe it's not a problem," she said.

A panel member suggested that NDOT consider "risk design," in which the design process continues before federal approvals are in place. It saves time but risks wasting money and planning if design changes later are deemed necessary.

"We take that risk" on some projects already, Martinovich said.

Martinovich was not alone in her concerns. "We have very similar issues," Victor Mendez, director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, told the panel.

"What we're talking about is not undermining the environmental process. It's streamlining it," said Mendez, who is also president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Tina Quigley, deputy general manager for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, said Clark County developed the Las Vegas Beltway as a local project precisely to avoid federal red tape and wasted time, but at the expense of rejecting federal funding for the project.

That sped up the project, which started in 1990 and is scheduled to finish in 2013, 12 years earlier than if it had adhered to federal requirements, Quigley said.

"That just wasn't gonna do it," Quigley said, because of the need to alleviate skyrocketing traffic congestion as soon as possible.

The plan required voters to approve a pair of tax increases under Question 10 ballot questions in 1990 and 2002 to make up for the lost federal funds.

"It's almost easier for you to not go through the federal process," said Tom Skancke, a panel member and Las Vegas-based transportation consultant. "That's part of the problem that's broken."

Greg Krause, executive director of Washoe Country's RTC in Northern Nevada, suggested that it might be time for a "defederalization" of gasoline tax revenues, allowing states to keep most of that money in-state and policing compliance with federal regulations themselves.

Today, states send the money to Washington, which then doles the money back to the states, but with strings attached.

But some panel members expressed concern that leaving states to fund roads themselves would hurt projects with regional or national importance, such as the interstate highway system itself.

"We can't lose sight of the role that the federal government has played to this point and might play in the future to make sure national objectives are met," said Schenendorf, the federal panel's vice chairman.