First ramps on massive intersection project on the way

For the motorists who have battled through lane narrowing and traffic jams on U.S. Highway 95 between Ann Road and Durango Drive, the commute is about to get a little easier.

And for those who live in northwest Las Vegas neighborhoods, get ready to say hello to the first pieces of a bona fide freeway interchange between U.S. 95 and the 215 Beltway.

A ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday launched work on the "Centennial Bowl," a nod to the nearby Centennial Hills neighborhood that will be served by the $46.7 million project expected to become the second-busiest freeway interchange in the state.

The interchange is replacing a temporary exit that requires motorists to exit onto Sky Pointe Drive and use an access road to a signaled intersection on the Beltway to go east and a cloverleaf exit to go west.

The Nevada Department of Transportation isn't doing the complete interchange just yet, but the first pieces of infrastructure should be impressive with a two-lane, 2,365-foot flyover bridge arcing 60 feet high and carrying westbound Beltway traffic to southbound U.S. 95.

The other big piece of the next phase of construction is a ramp that will carry northbound U.S. 95 traffic to the eastbound Beltway.

How quickly the full interchange is completed might be up to Clark County voters when they decide in 2016 whether to extend the fuel revenue indexing program that already has tacked on about 9 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

If a 10-year extension of the program is approved, the full interchange might be done within four years. If it isn't, it could take 16 years to accumulate the funding necessary to build the rest of the project.

In the meantime, workers are piggybacking the widening of U.S. 95 over the past year with the new interchange project.

"We've been working on widening U.S. 95 between Ann Road and Durango for several months to get ready for this," said Abid Sulahria, the associate engineer on the project. "When we finish that one, it's going to make things a lot smoother for the next project."

Sulahria was referring to the 4-mile, $35.7 million U.S. 95 widening program expected to wrap up in September. As that project concludes, the Centennial Bowl effort gets underway.

Minimal traffic disruption

The good news about the interchange work is that most of it will be away from the flow of traffic, allowing the contractor to keep three lanes of U.S. 95 and two lanes of the Beltway open in both directions most of the time and make it safer for the 100 construction workers expected to be hired for the job. There will be some lane shifts and reduced speeds during the project.

Workers will first put in a drainage culvert system.

The first elements of the highway ramps will be the ground-level swoosh carrying traffic east on the Beltway from northbound U.S. 95.

The other important work will be the drilling of 10 80-foot shafts to sturdy the 8-by-6-foot columns that will support the flyover bridge carrying westbound Beltway traffic to U.S. 95.

Drilling the holes shouldn't disrupt traffic either.

Meanwhile, workers will be completing the U.S. 95 distributor-collectors — roads parallel to the highway that will enable exiting freeway traffic to separate itself from motorists merging onto the freeway.

As soon as the distributor-collector on the west side of the highway is completed, it will serve as a detour route for southbound U.S. 95 traffic. That is when crews will place the flyover roadway across the six lanes of U.S. 95 traffic. That won't occur until late next year. Completion of the project is planned for spring 2017.

A more detailed schedule of work and potential road restrictions will be outlined in a public neighborhood meeting on Sept. 2.

Final phases

The completion of the interchange and a daunting plan to build two flyover bridges over Beltway lanes — one sandwiched beneath the flyover being built in the current phase — isn't planned until the early to mid-2020s.

The final phase of the interchange will move southbound U.S. 95 traffic to the eastbound Beltway and northbound U.S. 95 motorists to the westbound Beltway. Under current plans, the Beltway would have its own collector-distributor network.

Several nearby surface streets will be modified to improve traffic flows around a large retail center that includes a Target Supercenter northeast of the interchange and retail outlets in the Centennial Center that includes a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Home Depot and several automobile dealerships and restaurant chains southwest of the interchange.

Sky Pointe, on the east side of U.S. 95 will be improved with a series of overpasses over the Beltway leading traffic south to an intersection with Azure Drive. On the west side, Oso Blanca Road will burrow under Beltway overpasses and intersect with Centennial Center Boulevard.

Transportation officials say about 107,500 motorists use the intersection today, but that is expected to grow if population projections for northwest Las Vegas pan out.

If that occurs, the Centennial Bowl would become the second-busiest freeway interchange behind the Spaghetti Bowl, and ahead of Henderson's Beltway-U.S. 95 exchange, the Summerlin Parkway interchange with U.S. 95 and Reno's crossing of Interstates 80 and 580.

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