U.S. 95 shutdown causes rush-hour havoc for motorists

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 11:09 a.m.

At 6 p.m. on a Monday cars are usually trapped in grinding gridlock on U.S. 95 where it meets Interstate 15 to form the busiest interchange in Nevada, but Mondaynight no one motored into the Spaghetti Bowl.

The Nevada Department of Transportation shut down both north and southbound traffic on U.S. 95 forcing thousands of Las Vegans onto I-15 and surface streets as they tried to fight their way home from work.

U.S. 95 was scheduled to be closed in both directions at the Spaghetti Bowl at 10 p.m. Monday, but because of the amount of work that needed to be done on one of the interchange's new flyover bridges, rush-hour drivers had to face the closure at 6 p.m.

"We had to do some work on one of the bridges right over the freeway, and we always shut down traffic for safety in those situations," Meadow Valley Contractors Spaghetti Bowl Project Manager Tom Patton said. "We moved it up because we wanted to make sure that we could get everything we needed to get done finished before the morning rush hour starts."

Traffic was reopened on U.S. 95 by 8:10 p.m., and there were no delays -- due to construction -- on the highway this morning, said Bob Mckenzie, NDOT spokesman.

The project's night crew placed 60-ton, 12-foot-wide concrete sections into the flyover bridge being built just east of I-15 directly over U.S. 95.

In order to lift the huge concrete blocks into place, workers use a 445-feet -long, 500-ton Norwegian gantry crane, that has become a regular piece of the landscape in the $92 million interchange overhaul that started in October of 1998. The yellow crane slides on two gigantic steel rails, which move via hydraulic cylinders.

"You're dealing with some pretty technical geometry with the crane and the truss system," Patton said. "We had to make a small adjustment to where the crane is situated on the bridge over U.S. 95 Monday night."

Nevada Highway Patrol Troopers assisted in shutting down traffic by diverting southbound U.S. 95 traffic onto southbound I-15, and northbound traffic onto northbound I-15.

The overhaul is expected to be completed no later than October of next year.