Residents offer divided views over proposed U.S. 93 bypass

Jace Radke

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2000 | 10:53 a.m.

The Nevada Department of Transportation got what it asked for Wednesday night as Boulder City residents turned out by the dozens to voice their opinions on the U.S. 93 corridor study that is planned to address the city's unwanted traffic.

Whether U.S. 93 will be improved or a new freeway looping around Boulder City is built is still undecided, but citizens had plenty of opinions that were jotted down by NDOT officials.

Jerry Boettcher said he was glad to see that the city and NDOT were moving forward with plans to alleviate a problem that has been festering for years.

"Since I first moved here 13 years ago, the traffic in Boulder City has probably increased 300 percent," Boettcher said at Wednesday's public meeting at the Boulder City campus of the Community College of Southern Nevada. "We have a lot of trucks that roll through town, and that becomes dangerous."

Boettcher said he thinks a bypass freeway around the south end of the city is the only way to cure the city's traffic ills, but others disagreed.

Lisa Caruso, who owns the Super 8 Motel on U.S. 93 (Nevada Highway in Boulder City), agreed that a bypass would keep traffic out of the city, but at a cost to the local businesses.

"There is no traffic problem here," Caruso said. "There are a lot of older retired people here that see two cars in front of them and get impatient.

"Go over the hill to Henderson and you'll see traffic problems."

Boettcher said that the people who want to frequent Boulder City businesses will continue to do so with or without a bypass freeway.

"Those people who are coming to visit the dam and Boulder City will still come and spend money," Boettcher said. "The people who will take the bypass are the ones who wouldn't have stopped for a hamburger anyway."

The study takes in about 11 miles of U.S. 93 starting just over Railroad Pass at Foothills Boulevard in Henderson and moving east through Boulder City to the Hacienda hotel-casino, formerly the Gold Strike.

NDOT and contractor CH2M Hill will spend the next several months gathering information and scoping the project.

If a bypass freeway is the chosen solution, the soonest it could be constructed is 2002.

Improvements are due to begin next year to make U.S. 95 from its interchange with U.S. 93 near Railroad Pass south to the California border a four-lane divided highway.

Councilman Bryan Nix believes that the U.S. 95 project -- coupled with the highway through Laughlin to Arizona -- could take care of Boulder City's traffic problems without building a bypass or a wider U.S. 93. He said it would provide an alternate route for trucks that otherwise travel through Boulder City and over Hoover Dam to get to Arizona.

"I don't understand why NDOT won't consider the 95 project in connection with this study," Nix said. "At the least we should hold off until that project is completed.

"Truck drivers aren't going to choose to go over Hoover Dam and through the stoplights in the city when they can take a four-lane highway. The 95 route is a little longer, but I'd bet it'll be just as fast when the work's done."

NDOT points out that the extra distance of that route can cost truckers money.

"We don't look at 95 and Laughlin as a viable bypass because of the extra 23 miles that trucks would have to travel," NDOT project manager Tom Greco said.