Work on I-15 creates frustrating bottleneck

Karen Zekan

Friday, Oct. 24, 1997 | 10:55 a.m.

Motorists caught in the single-lane Interstate 15 snarl between Tropicana Avenue and Flamingo Road better take a deep breath: Officials don't expect the highway to return to normal until March 1998.

The light at the end of the six-month "tunnel," so to speak, will be a freshly paved roadway that the Nevada Department of Transportation hopes will make for smoother and more efficient travel for the rapidly growing local and tourist population.

But to get there, NDOT's crews will have to rip out a section of concrete in the middle of the highway between Tropicana and Flamingo, pour in new cement, allow enough time for it to properly cure, and restripe the surface.

A lengthy row of jersey walls have been erected in the middle of the freeway around the construction site where work will begin in coming weeks.

The cement island forces motorists needing to access Tropicana and Flamingo into a single lane on the far right, creeping at a snail's pace come rush hour.

Meanwhile, through traffic -- indeed, the luckiest drivers in the bunch -- gain the luxury of two fast-moving and virtually stress-free lanes to the roadway's far left side.

"There'll be lots of congestion until it's all done," said Gus Michaels, NDOT's assistant district engineer, of the Tropicana-Flamingo tangle. "We'll be doing the work in stages, and we hope to gradually ease things up by opening more of the road as we finish. We just ask that people be patient, leave early if they have to use those exits, or try to find alternate routes."

At project's completion, I-15 will be operating with three travel lanes in each direction, plus auxiliary lanes, from the 215 beltway to the Spaghetti Bowl.

Trooper Steve Harney of the Nevada Highway Patrol said the recent freeway split so far has not caused any fender benders. "People do, however, get confused unless they see the signs in time and are able to move into the appropriate lane," Harney said.

Harney commended NDOT's efforts in setting up the detours.

"The way they did it is actually of benefit to the motoring public, because you won't see drivers cutting other people off at the last second to make the exit," Harney said.

Springtime construction work at the Spaghetti Bowl, Harney said, averaged two to three auto accidents a day because of less-desirable detours.

"As Las Vegas grows, it is going to bring inconvenient periods on our roadways with construction," Harney said. "When it's finished, though, we'll all be able to get to the places we need to get to sooner and easier."