Columnist Ken McCall: Long road ahead for traffic woes

Ken McCall

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

IT BEGAN SOMETIME in the last couple of months.

All of a sudden I found myself twiddling my thumbs in a line of traffic that never used to be there.

I'm sure you know the feeling. It's happening all over town.

It's technically called "Level of Service F." An intersection gets an F (as in Failing) any time vehicles average more than 60 seconds in it. Generally that translates to the ugly experience of watching lights turn red and green and red again.

Out in my neck of the woods -- the U.S. 95-Cheyenne Avenue offramp -- it came out of nowhere. One day I'm blithely turning left onto Cheyenne, the next day I find myself in a line of cars stretching almost all the way back to the freeway.

We've even got our own homeless guy begging along the offramp -- a sure sign the congestion is now a reliable fact of life.

The intersection, however, hasn't gone unnoticed by the traffic gods. Gerry DeCamp, manager of the Las Vegas area's computer traffic system, was out there about a week ago tinkering with the lights.

"I just stole a little green time from someone else to give that movement a little more," he says. "We try to even up the misery as much as we can."

In this case, my fellow left-turners and I now have 49 seconds to get onto Cheyenne. Even at 6:45 p.m., long after the supposed peak hour is past, it is often not enough.

DeCamp figures the increased traffic has to do with the recently completed widening of Cheyenne west of Tenaya Way to six lanes. That and all the "built yesterday" apartments and houses that have sprouted up the street.

It usually takes about three months or so, he says, for drivers to realize they have "new road to drive on." When they change their driving patterns, it can cause congestion problems. In a hurry.

Only a year ago, a traffic study of the U.S. 95 corridor showed the Cheyenne offramp at Level of Service D, with an average wait of 32 seconds.

We in the northwest call those the good ol' days.

Luckily, however, the state has a plan. An Early Action Plan, to be precise.

Part of the U.S. 95 Major Investment Study, the plan outlines 45 projects for areas requiring "immediate relief" that could be "implemented within a one-year time frame."

Sadly, the plan is already a year old and only one of the projects has been completed. But then, what did we expect?

It seems, says Kristine Carpenter, U.S. 95 project coordinator for the state Department of Transportation, that "not too many engineers" participated in the study. As a result, she says, the timelines turned out to be a bit optimistic and some projects aren't feasible at all.

While the department couldn't provide a complete status report on the projects -- some of which are being handled by the city of Las Vegas, Clark County and the Regional Transportation Commission -- at least two have been dropped and work has apparently started on only two others.

The good news is that many of these projects should be appearing soon at an intersection near you. If you live or drive north of Desert Inn Road and east of I-15, that is.

Up at the Cheyenne interchange, Carpenter says, dual left-turn lanes will be installed by September. That should help matters for a few months anyway.

Dual left-turn lanes, in fact, appear to be the early action solution of choice. They are scheduled for 19 intersections, many along Rancho Drive, Charleston and Valley View boulevards and Sahara Avenue.

The dual turn lanes are a popular quick fix because they're relatively cheap and they don't require any extra real estate. Most of those projects are estimated to cost between $40,000 and $100,000.

That may be a lot to you and me, but it's chicken feed in the highway business.

The estimated cost of widening Desert Inn Road to six lanes from Jones to Valley View boulevards, for example, is $6.3 million. The bill for widening Oakey Boulevard from Rainbow to Decatur boulevards will be about $4.4 million.

Then there are the $6 million in early improvements for U.S. 95, to try to get us through until the expressway is rebuilt.

Summerlin residents, meanwhile, can look forward to the restriping of the Summerlin Parkway exit to two lanes at a bargain-basement cost of $161,000.

That ought to just about handle the load ... until they start building Summerlin South and West.

Just like all these other quick fixes will ease your traffic stress a bit ... until the next 20 subdivisions go up around yours.

DeCamp, who's been here only seven years, says he can remember when the Cheyenne-U.S. 95 intersection had "next to nothing" in the way of traffic.

Hey, I've only been here for 18 months and I can see the difference.

After all, in that time another 90,000 people -- and their cars -- have moved in. That's enough for an entire medium-sized city in most parts, but it's just another blink of the eye for Las Vegas.

As one traffic planner says, "It's still not the commute you have in L.A., but it's getting worse every day."