MLK Boulevard offramps from I-15, US 95 in Las Vegas to reopen Tuesday morning
Freeway off-ramps leading to Martin Luther King Boulevard will reopen just in time for the Tuesday morning commute in downtown Las Vegas, clearing one of the final remnants of “Car-nado.”
The Martin Luther King Boulevard off-ramps from northbound Interstate 15 and northbound U.S. Highway 95 are scheduled to open at 6 a.m., Nevada Department of Transportation spokesman Tony Illia said.
The ramps have been closed for nearly five months as part of Project Neon, a $1 billion effort to redesign and add traffic lanes along I-15 from the U.S. 95 interchange to Sahara Avenue by July 2019. Since October, crews moved the ramp farther north to make room for an 81-foot-tall high-occupancy vehicle flyover that will span 2,606 feet.
Car-nado marked the first of three major closures connected to the larger Project Neon. The next phase for Nevada’s largest freeway infrastructure project begins March 21, when U.S. 95 will be narrowed to two lanes in each direction between Rancho Drive and the Spaghetti Bowl interchange, Illia said.
The second round of restrictions, known as “The Big Squeeze,” will last through January 2018, coinciding with periodic closures of freeway ramps and surface streets.
About 300,000 vehicles travel daily on the Spaghetti Bowl interchange connecting I-15 and U.S. 95, with traffic expected to double by 2035. A third, yet-to-be-named closure is anticipated in 2018.
Contact Art Marroquin at amarroquin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Follow @AMarroquin_LV on Twitter.
