State road budget gets board’s OK
CARSON CITY -- A $450 million state road budget for the current year was approved Tuesday by the state Transportation Board, with more than half the total going to a single freeway widening project in Southern Nevada.
The spending plan, which started July 1, will dedicate $240 million to an Interstate 15 widening project from Tropicana Avenue four miles south to state Route 160.
The project should get under way next summer using room tax revenues approved for use in road construction by Gov. Jim Gibbons and lawmakers in 2007, said Transportation Department spokesman Scott Magruder.
The project will be design-build, which overlaps the designing and building phases of a construction project resulting in the work being completed more quickly. One contractor oversees the entire process.
The current widening project on I-15 north of the Spaghetti Bowl is a design-build project.
There are only a few other new projects in the state's fiscal year 2008-09 road budget, which includes $230 million in federal funding.
The other big project, which is maintenance related, is a resurfacing of 52 miles of Interstate 80 in Pershing County in Northern Nevada at a cost of $52 million.
A smaller project in Southern Nevada that is also part of the budget is the resurfacing of 10 miles of Cheyenne Avenue from Nellis Boulevard to I-15 at a cost of $16 million. The project will also include the widening of Cheyenne, by re-striping the existing roadway, on a five-mile section.
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.
