Public gets look at landscape plans

Monday, April 8, 2002 | 9:10 a.m.

Meeting

The Nevada Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting to receive input on the draft highway landscaping plan from 4 to 7 p.m. today at the Mountain Crest Community Center, 4701 N. Durango Drive. Meetings also are scheduled in Sparks on Tuesday and in Elko on Wednesday. For information, call NDOT at(775) 888-7537.

Sometimes, however, the roads -- and their intersections -- offer less-than-impressive landscapes filled with dust and asphalt. A new master plan for landscaping state roads hopes to change that.

The Nevada Department of Transportation will offer residents a look at that future tonight at a public meeting on the new landscaping plan.

"It would set the tone for our highways overall," said Susan Jones, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas research assistant who has worked on the project since July.

"If adopted by the State Transportation Board, it would balance vision and aesthetics with safety and environment on all of our highway projects," Jones said. "They can be just as important to our quality of life."

Jones worked with UNLV architecture professor Mark Hoversten on the project.

Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa also worked on the project. She sparked the effort with a March 2000 letter to NDOT Director Tom Stephens asking the department to work with local governments to landscape roads and intersections.

Del Papa said the critical component of the plan is "communication, cooperation and collaboration with local communities," and with developers and private landowners who could be affected.

The advisory committee for the plan includes representatives from all those constituencies, she said. Del Papa, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Las Vegas Councilman Michael Mack co-chair the panel.

Del Papa said community "gateways" leading into towns are among the most important areas targeted in the plan.

The most significant thing the plan can do is foster aesthetic development in the design and planning stages of a road project, she said. Establishing the landscaping afterward can be much more expensive, Del Papa said.

"It really is important to do it on the front end," she said.

Jones agreed. But even if landscaping is included in the planning of road work, it could cost millions, she warned. The estimated cost has not yet been established.

"We will be working to put some costs against this," Jones said. "That isn't quite done yet, but they don't come cheap."

She noted that the state has more than 5,000 miles of highways, "and new roads are built every day."

NDOT's Stephens acknowledged that landscaping new roads alone would be expensive. The department and master plan designers are looking for ways to minimize the potential cost by adding plants that require little water or maintenance, he said.