I-15 road closures to make way for HOV lane enforcement

Road crews will be working right up until the day carpool lane enforcement goes live on a 22-mile stretch of Las Vegas freeways.

A stretch of Interstate 15 will shut to traffic on a pair of night this week — southbound on Tuesday night and northbound on Wednesday night — for final paving work associated with Project Neon, the 4-mile widening of I-15 between Sahara Avenue and the Spaghetti Bowl, the Nevada Department of Transportation announced Monday.

The closures are as follow:

Tuesday night-Wednesday morning

-I-15 southbound between Russell Road and the 215 Beltway will close from 9 p.m. Tuesday until 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Wednesday night-Thursday morning

-I-15 northbound between the 215 Beltway and Russell will close from 9 p.m. Wednesday until 5 a.m. Thursday.

Crews are applying a special crumb rubber asphalt mix, using shredded tires for a smoother, quieter ride. Crumb rubber lasts twice as long as traditional asphalt pavement and creates a better friction surface with less wet weather splashing. Pave-A-Palooza will use roughly 60,000 discarded tires, which would otherwise end up in a landfill.

As crews wrap up and reopen the stretch of road to motorists Thursday morning, Nevada Highway Patrol Troopers will be out in full force enforcing high occupancy vehicle lane restrictions.

Drivers have not been cited during a 30-day grace period that began when the new HOV lanes on I-15 and U.S. Highway 95 were opened to traffic. With that moratorium ending Thursday, NDOT provided NHP with $10,000 to pay for trooper overtime to saturate the new HOV lanes and ticket motorists violating the new laws governing them.

Project Neon is 96 percent complete and slated for completion in mid-July.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.