Flamingo Road construction will impede traffic through ‘16

Brace yourselves, motorists who use Flamingo Road.

A $40.3 million overhaul of 14 miles of Flamingo begins next month and people driving one of the city’s primary east-west routes will see the number of traffic lanes reduced and work zones in place through October 2016.

But don’t fret. Crews won’t be working the entire length of Flamingo from Grand Canyon Drive to Jimmy Durante Boulevard for the duration of the project.

The project coordinated by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, Clark County and the Nevada Transportation Department will be staggered so that there will be two 3½-4 mile sections under construction at a time, one east of Interstate 15 and one west. The first phase of construction will last until December, then a second phase will run from December through the next fall.

Details of the Flamingo Corridor Improvement project were outlined in a pair of public meetings this week.

“This is the last hurrah before we start construction,” said Brij Gulati, the Transportation Department senior engineer managing the project.

Ground is scheduled to be broken at a March 10 ceremony, and the project begins in earnest in April.

Gulati said two lanes of traffic of the three in each direction of the arterial would remain open during construction.

But there will be disruptions.

The project includes:

■ Resurfacing and restriping about seven of the 14 miles of the project.

■ Installation of more than 100 new transit shelters along Regional Transportation Commission bus routes.

■ Traffic signal upgrades and installation of flashing-light crosswalk signals at several locations along the road.

■ Installation of Intelligent Transportation System sensors and technology to improve traffic flow.

■ Addition of improved pedestrian crosswalks.

■ Installation of channeled left-turn lanes that will restrict left turns from driveways and cross streets that don’t have signals.

■ Striping of dedicated bus transit and bicycle lanes. Dedicated bus lanes are planned on Flamingo between Rainbow Boulevard and Arville Street and between Koval Lane and Boulder Highway. Concrete bus pads — the bus stopping areas that best support a bus’s weight — also will be installed.

■ Medians with nonirrigated decorative landscaping will be added.

Gulati said designs and preconstruction work have been underway since July 2013. The agencies conducted public meetings last year to alert homeowners and business operators along the route of the planned construction. After those meetings, engineers incorporated some of the ideas into the design plan. Gulati said most of the people who turned out for this week’s meetings were happy with the final plan.

Since last year’s meetings the department also applied for and received federal grant money to help pay for the project.

Federal officials approved a $13.3 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant for the project last year.

The rest of the breakdown of funding sources for the project is $18 million from the Transportation Department, $8 million in fuel revenue indexing taxes, $800,000 in Federal Transit Administration funds and a $200,000 local match from the Transportation Commission.

As one of the busiest arterials in the valley, Flamingo is also an important piece of the RTC’s bus system. Flamingo connects to 15 routes, including 11 residential, three express and the Strip’s Deuce routes.

RTC officials say there are 12,000 passenger boardings along the corridor making it the most used residential route in the valley’s transit system.

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