Thursday, March 9, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.
Joint efforts by California and Nevada to loosen the legendary gridlock on Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas are starting to bear their first fruits -- but Nevadans still need to maintain the pressure on officials to continue work on the critical highway, a consultant said Wednesday.
The first piece of the I-15 puzzle -- the widening of the interchange of I-15 and I-40 in Barstow, Calif. -- opened on Dec. 27. The interchange, built with the help of $54 million in federal funds and $4 million in Nevada funds, is now slicing about 30 minutes off the average drive time from Los Angeles, said Tom Skancke, a consultant who has been pushing the widening project for the past decade.
Skancke is the designated consultant for the I-15 project for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Nevada Resort Association and the Nevada Development Authority.
On Wednesday, his main concern was to drum up support for continued funding for the projects among Las Vegas business leaders -- and to convince them to continue lobbying elected officials to provide future financing for the highway.
"That highway is the lifeline ... to the engine that drives this state," Skancke said at a membership meeting of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. "If nothing is done on I-15, this is going to be a very small crowd in 10 years."
The LVCVA estimates 5.4 million cars annually made the trek from Los Angeles to Las Vegas -- making I-15 auto traffic the largest single source of visitors to Las Vegas and its casinos. This traffic has turned what used to be a 4-hour drive into a trip of eight to 14 hours, Skancke said. By 2020, it is estimated the highway would be at 325 percent its planned capacity if no improvements are made.
Moreover, the highway is critical because 85 percent of the goods and services consumed in Southern Nevada make their way into the state through trucks traveling I-15, Skancke said.
The Barstow interchange, irreverently called "the Barstow parking lot," caused traffic jams as four lanes of traffic coming from Los Angeles narrowed to two lanes. Although that jam has been cleared, three major bottlenecks remain.
Next on the list, Skancke said, is the widening of a 30-mile stretch of I-15 from Victorville to Barstow. This pass often sees traffic jams as trucks switch into lower gears to navigate the mountainous terrain.
The widening of this road, slated for completion in 2005, will cost $300 million. California has appropriated $260 million for the project, while Congress put up $24 million. Nevada provided an additional $10 million, Skancke said.
The first phase of the project is under way -- the construction of a truck-climbing lane along southbound I-15. That will be complete by year's end, Skancke said. By 2001, a northbound truck lane should also be finished.
Though the project provides for the addition of a third car lane in each direction -- something that won't be finished for five years -- the truck lanes alone will provide huge relief for the stretch, since they would create a second lane of free-flowing car traffic as trucks move out of the traffic flow.
The final stage of work in California is the largest -- an ambitious $750 million project to widen 80 miles of freeway to 12 lanes from Los Angeles to Victorville.
Public support for the I-15 project is particularly critical, Skancke said, because Congress will appropriate funding for such projects in 2002 -- and California will be competing with practically every state for those improvement dollars.
Though project design and environmental work has begun on this project, contributions have yet to be allocated by either the federal government or Nevada. A timeframe for the project still isn't available, Skancke said.
The final piece of the project is the widening of I-15 from the Nevada state line to Lake Mead Drive. Skancke said he is currently working with the Nevada Department of Transportation to appropriate funds for this project.
"We've just gotten started," Skancke said. "We must continue to solve this highway crisis."
archive
