State can’t drag feet on Boulder City traffic issue

This traffic problem facing Boulder City sounds oddly familiar. A large, new attraction is built, traffic increases to a standstill, and the Regional Transportation Commission and the Nevada Department of Transportation rush in after the fact to discuss a solution to a problem that didn't exactly arrive overnight.

During a good chunk of my 20 years in Clark County, I lived near Interstate 15 and Cheyenne Avenue in North Las Vegas. Everything was largely peaceful, traffic-wise, until September 1996 when the Las Vegas Motor Speedway opened.

Not exactly a project that was announced suddenly one month and opened the next. But when 67,000 people arrived for the first major race, everyone seemed surprised by the traffic that clogged the two northbound lanes of I-15 leading to the track.

Las Vegas Boulevard also became a parking lot.

Thousands of people missed half of the inaugural race.

By the next big race a month later, NDOT and the police had devised a wondrous plan to alleviate the traffic that would arrive with the nearly 100,000 people who attended the race: Use the shoulder lane and right lane for speedway traffic, and leave the far left lane open for through traffic.

That didn't really work.

By the early 2000s, the Las Vegas Beltway was completed and alleviated some traffic problems. The bigger help came in the form of a $240 million I-15 widening project from the Spaghetti Bowl to Craig Road.

That project was completed nearly one year ago -- 13½ years after that first race.

A similar foot-drag on the current traffic problem in Boulder City would be catastrophic for the people who live here, the tourists who visit here and people wanting to pass through.

What is facing Boulder City in the wake of the opening of the Hoover Dam bridge is the single largest traffic issue in the state of Nevada.

The state and federal governments need to look at the fact that Phoenix and Las Vegas are the only areas of their size not directly connected by an interstate. U.S. Highway 93 not only connects Arizona and Nevada, it is part of the larger Canamex Corridor connecting trade between Mexico and Canada.

The only reasonable, feasible solution is the building of the city bypass.

An RTC official said last week the bypass needs to become part of the discussion on Interstate 11 -- connecting Phoenix to Las Vegas -- which would bring the proposed $360 million project federal funding.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to step up in his role as the most powerful politician in Washington, D.C., to bring more than the $40 million he has already procured for the bypass. Funding the bypass also must become a priority for the state's other congressional representatives.

New Gov. Brian Sandoval needs to put the bypass project on the front burner for funding. And since the problem affects tourism, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the casinos should take a stake.

There is no other solution. Widening U.S. 93 from the Hacienda down to Buchanan -- a proposal that has received push back from the National Park Service -- would only buy time. Moving tractor-trailers back onto U.S. Highway 95 through Searchlight is a temporary solution.

As a city, we are less than three months into this problem. As the areas around Phoenix and Las Vegas rebound economically, more traffic will surely come.

Arnold M. Knightly is the editor of the Boulder City Review, which first published this column on Jan. 6.