Push to remove HOV lanes from Las Vegas Valley drives forward

The push to eradicate high occupancy vehicle lanes in the Las Vegas Valley continues, led by one of the state’s top transportation figures.

Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, who sits as vice chairman of the Nevada Transportation Board of Directors, has been on a yearslong effort to get rid of HOV lanes in Southern Nevada.

Last year, at the urge of Anthony, the state initiated an environmental study on whether converting HOV lanes to general purposes lanes would create any impacts.

“We are continuing to do the study through the federal government to really tell the federal government that we do not need HOV lanes in Southern Nevada,” Anthony said this month.

‘HOV lanes are useless’

The study began last year and is expected to take two years to complete, Anthony said.

“My hope is a year from now we’ll have this study done and we can go to the federal government and basically tell them HOV lanes are useless,” he said.

From the feedback he’s heard, Anthony said he’s under the assumption that the majority of Southern Nevada residents don’t support the carpool lanes in the valley.

“They’re causing congestion,” Anthony said. “Nobody is calling their neighbor to drive in the HOV lane.”

Anthony also hopes that the change in presidential administration from Joe Biden to Donald Trump could also help his cause with the federal government for removing the HOV lanes.

”I’m hoping with a Trump administration that they’ll see the fallacy of these HOV lanes and they’ll allow us to open them up,” Anthony said.

HOV lanes brief history

Carpool lanes were added to Interstate 15 in 2019 as part of Project Neon — adding to the existing HOV lanes on U.S. Highway 95 at the time.

At that time carpool regulations in effect limited the use of the HOV lanes to vehicles with two or more people and were in place for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A pilot program was launched in fall 2022 with HOV regulation hours being reduced from 24/7 to being open to all motorists between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. seven days a week.

Anthony was already successful in leading the charge to reduce the hours that HOV lanes are in effect in Southern Nevada. Last year, the carpool lane regulation hours were further reduced to the current hours with the lanes now being dedicated to carpooling only between 6 and 8 a.m. and between 4 and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and open to all on weekends.

Anthony did that early on into his position of lieutenant governor, continuing a crusade he began while sitting as a member of the Las Vegas City Council.

“Once I became lieutenant governor I think it took me five months to get them down to two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, because I had more control,” Anthony said. “I appreciate the (transportation) board voting for my motion and doing that. NDOT went along with it too. They didn’t fight me at all.”

Do HOV lanes encourage carpooling?

Regional Transportation Commission spokeswoman Sue Christiansen made the case that the carpool lanes are picking up steam. Christiansen noted that the RTC has seen a steady increase in participants in its carpooling program, RTC Club Ride, outside of 2024, when the program was restructured.

Members of RTC’s Club Ride program voluntarily record their commute modes, which include carpooling as an option, Christiansen said.

“While not all carpool trips are HOV system trips, carpool trip reporting consistently rose year-over-year,” Christiansen said. “At the mid-mark of 2025, we are already at nearly 120,000 carpool trips recorded.”

Between July 3, 2024, and Thursday, 156 HOV lane violation citations were submitted by law enforcement officials to Las Vegas Municipal Court. Of those, 119 were found liable for their violations, 19 are pending judgment, 16 were dismissed and two were found not liable.

With the push to remove the lanes moving forward, Anthony said he’s not sure how the potential removal of HOV lanes would affect on- and -off ramps located on the left side of I-15. Some are at the Neon Gateway downtown and at Harmon Avenue, where an HOV half interchange was built as part of the I-15/Tropicana Avenue interchange project.

“I mean, as far as I’m concerned, we could just turn them all into general purpose lanes and it’s not going to impact anybody,” Anthony said. “It’s not going to increase the usage of the HOV lanes philosophy.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X. Send questions and comments to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com.