Wider is better

Sunday, May 28, 2000 | 9:26 a.m.

A long-promised, anticipated and for some dreaded expansion of the freeway connecting the Las Vegas Valley's northwest to downtown and the south is coming, state officials say.

The expansion is a mammoth, five-part effort to expand the critical U.S. 95 artery from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Craig Road, said Genichi Kanow, project manager for the Nevada Department of Transportation.

The agency plans to build a 10-lane highway from Martin Luther King past Rainbow Avenue and a six-lane highway from north of the Summerlin Parkway past Cheyenne Avenue. Kanow and advocates say the effort will reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality and increase highway safety.

Advocates and opponents of the project have debated the freeway expansion for most of the last decade, but Kanow said the final design go-ahead came in January from the Environmental Protection Agency.

That approval of the final environmental impact assessment appeared to quash the hopes of project opponents, among them hundreds of homeowners who will have to move to make room for the expanded freeway and an accompanying path for a future mass-transit system.

Kanow said the project is essential to serve the growing number of vehicles crowding the roadways in the northwest part of the Las Vegas Valley. Design is nearly complete for some of the five scheduled segments of the effort, and construction should start on the first phase of the first segment in September.

In mid-2001, work expanding the four lanes from Cheyenne to Craig Road to six lanes will begin, with completion scheduled by the summer of 2002.

Construction on all three overpass bridges should be complete by the winter of 2003 or early 2004.

Issues need settling

Kanow cautioned that all of the construction dates are subject to change. Potentially thorny right-of-way acquisition issues still need to be settled in the coming months.

And funding for the project depends on regular allocations from both the federal and state governments. Funding could be disrupted if the region fails to get approved air-pollution-control plans in place for carbon monoxide and fine dust.

NDOT officials estimate that 60 percent of the project's $350 million price tag will come from the federal government, the rest from the state. That figure includes $100 million to buy rights-of-way along the length of the freeway expansion project.

When U.S. 95 was designed and built in the mid-1970s, it was supposed to handle 75,000 vehicles a day, said Cathy Razor, senior analyst for PBS&J, the engineering contractor leading the expansion planning.

Today the road handles 170,000 cars and trucks a day, and by 2020, that number is projected to climb to 250,000 a day.

NDOT officials say they have no choice but to expand the roadway. The addition of lanes on U.S. 95 was identified as a key need for the area's overloaded traffic system by the Regional Transportation Commission, the lead agency for determining how much and where highway money will be spent.

The officials also argue that people aren't moving to the sprawling northwest part of the valley because of the highway expansion.

"We're basically reacting to growth, rather than driving growth," Razor said.

Elected officials -- regional, state and federal -- also are demanding the expansion and want it soon, she said.

"Let's go," Razor said. "That's been a continuous comment all along."

Steven R. Henson, NDOT assistant chief for right-of-way acquisition, said approximately 200 single-family homes, 140 multifamily residences and 22 businesses will have to move by the time the project is completed.

The right-of-way issues have driven the decade-long effort to stop the project. But even those passionately opposed to the project admit that it looks like they have lost that war.

"Right now, this really looks like a done deal," said Juanita Clark, board member of Charleston Neighborhood Preservation, one of several groups that opposed the expansion.

But Clark said she is not convinced that the expansion is a good thing.

"It's not good for anybody," she said. "It is never a good idea to cut through the city like that."

Clark predicted that the road will be just as congested as it was before the expansion as more drivers flock to it, and that air pollution and health effects will blossom downwind from the project.

She said property values already are plummeting through the comfortable, older northwest neighborhoods where the expansion will take place. To her, the expansion wasn't driven by need, but by hunger for government road-construction dollars.

"If we can just get that money in here and keep construction going, that's what (policymakers) care about," Clark said. "This is a tragedy, a case of our elected representatives eating the people."

Some of Clark's neighbors figure that they have fought the good fight: Now it's time to get out.

Jean Withers wants to move out of her home on Pyracantha Circle. She knows that the Valley View overpass will force her out, but Withers -- among others -- complains that they still don't have a timeline or an acquisition offer from the state.

In the meantime, the value of her home is steadily dropping, said the former chairwoman of Citizens Against U.S. 95 Widening.

"The longer we sit here the more (my home) depreciates," she said. "You can't make any improvements on a house that is going to be torn down."

Withers said she and her husband have avoided major improvements on her home for a third of the 19 years they have lived there.

Forced out of their home

Roger Hall, a few doors down the street, will be sad to leave the home where he has lived with his wife, Helen. The couple will also have to move several businesses they run out of their home, including a small video-production company.

"I have no desire to move," he said. "We've got everything just the way we like it."

Hall said he realizes that the booming Las Vegas Valley needs more traffic lanes. But he also is frustrated by the lack of feedback from the state.

"We have no idea of the timetable," he said. "We don't know if it's a month, six months, a year down the road."

The Halls have contacted a lawyer, not to fight the process but out of concern that they won't be able to replace their home with a similar home elsewhere in the valley.

Hall said his comfortable home has some amenities, such as a backyard pool, that can't be replaced at the $98,000 valuation of his home -- a value that dropped after the road plans were announced.

"You couldn't replace it for less than $150,000," he said. "We're trying to do everything we can to protect ourselves."

NDOT officials are sensitive to the criticism.

Agency spokesman Robert McKenzie said that as the right-of-way acquisition process continues, the department will set up "storefront" offices throughout the affected area to get timely information to neighbors.

Henson said that the homeowners on Pyracantha Circle will get formal notices that they will be moving in roughly a month. Cash offers will follow in about three to six months.

By state law, NDOT must factor into the offer any loss of value because of the project, Henson said. The state also will try to fully cover reasonable relocation costs, including ambulatory services if needed for elderly people in the neighborhood, he said.

Henson agreed that acquisition of rights-of-way isn't always easy, but NDOT officials argue that it will be for the entire region's greater good.

An important element of the effort is to cut the amount of smog generated on Las Vegas roadways, Kanow and other officials argue.

NDOT officials say that the expansion won't just make room for more vehicles, but also can be a tool to cut the number of cars on the freeway.

The expanded road will include one "high-occupancy-vehicle" lane for car pools. "Park and ride" areas will connect commuters to mass-transit systems. And the expanded road will help support a projected 280 percent increase in the number of buses plying the northwest, officials argue.

The right-of-way will include space for the valley's planned "fixed guideway," a monorail-like mass-transit system.

"It won't solve all of our transportation problems," Razor said. "But it will help."

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