Proposal routing Interstate 11 past Frenchman Mountain opposed

Most of the people offering opinions Thursday on where Interstate 11 should go through the Las Vegas Valley made one thing perfectly clear: They don’t want a new highway east of Frenchman Mountain that would connect the north end of Boulder City with Interstate 15.

Representatives of the Nevada Department of Transportation presented details of the Intermountain West Corridor Study and proposed I-11 routes at the Historic Fifth Street School in Las Vegas, then opened the floor to questions and comments.

What they got next was a steady barrage of reasons why a proposal to route I-11 traffic around the city instead of through it was the worst of three alternatives offered by planners.

Transportation departments from Nevada and Arizona have been working since the early 1990s to develop a new Mexico-to-Canada corridor to relieve growing traffic on Interstates 5 and 15 and to promote economic development in those states.

In 2012, Congress designated I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas, and officials from both states went to work on corridor concepts.

For Las Vegas, alternative I-11 routes were whittled to three: a western option that would use U.S. Highway 95 and the 215 Beltway, reconnecting to U.S. Highway 95 near Kyle Canyon Road; a central option that would use U.S. 95 through the Spaghetti Bowl; and the eastern option that would require construction of a new highway between 23 and 25 miles long.

About 50 people attended Thursday’s meeting, and most of them weighed in on the eastern alternative.

Some didn’t like the idea of a new highway through portions of old Henderson and Lake Las Vegas.

Others noted that the most likely route would cut through or close to Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The National Park Service is on record saying it would fight that possibility.

Others questioned whether any of the area had been surveyed for potential archaeological sites or desert wildlife habitats.

“We can’t answer questions about specific environmental concerns because we have no specific alignments identified,” said Sondra Rosenberg, the Nevada Department of Transportation’s project manager.

Rosenberg said that it’s too early to pinpoint specifics on new construction because the corridors around Las Vegas are still in a conceptual stage.

The two-year study now underway is designed to determine which corridor would work best.

“There are no easy answers,” Rosenberg said. “There are some restraints on every possible routing.”

One factor will be cost, and engineers provided some estimates indicating that assumptions that a new highway would be the most expensive option were wrong.

Bardia Nezhati, a project engineer with CH2M Hill, said the estimated cost of the eastern corridor was $1.1 billion.

The cost of the western option, using the Beltway, was estimated at $1 billion, assuming that two new traffic lanes would have to be built the length of the route.

Most of the expense was attributed to bridge widening projects.

The most expensive option is the U.S. 95 routing at $2.9 billion. That’s because right-of-way would have to be acquired and the Spaghetti Bowl would have to be redesigned to accommodate the anticipated additional traffic.

Nezhati said that route may be impossible to use because there is no available right-of-way on portions of the route north of the Spaghetti Bowl.

The cost estimate showing that a new highway was a less-expensive alternative to the central option made some people suspicious.

“I think all of this is just political,” Henderson resident Paul Marcinek said. “I’d bet my life that this eastern corridor is going to be the one that’s selected. I just have no faith in what the government is doing.”

Rosenberg said it will be years before improvements would be made.

Regardless of what route is chosen, state officials still would have to conduct environmental studies, design the highway and acquire rights-of-way before construction could start — and there’s no money to do any of that.

But she said one piece of the study is to review every possible funding option. Among the options: federal transportation funds, special fuel taxes, fuel tax indexing, higher sales taxes and higher vehicle registration and motor vehicle licensing fees.

Tolling options also are being considered, including truck-only toll lanes, managed lanes, traffic impact fees, mileage-based user fees and sales taxes on motor fuels.

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow him on Twitter @RickVelotta.