Interstate 15 median cleanup to begin

Stephen Curran

Wednesday, July 3, 2002 | 3:53 a.m.

A highway cleanup should ease an urban eyesore becoming more prevalent in the Las Vegas area, officials from the Nevada Department of Transportation said.

Beginning Monday NDOT crews will begin clearing debris and weeds, trimming trees and spraying for weeds on a median of Interstate 15 between Cheyenne Avenue and Craig Road. The project is expected to wrap up July 15.

The stretch of highway is cleaned about every six months, Robert McKenzie, a department spokesman, said. The maintenance is conducted by full-time NDOT maintenance employees, who do everything from replacing guardrails to picking up trash, he said.

"This is simply routine maintenance," he said. "Cleaning the shoulders and medians is a large part of what we do."

While NDOT occasionally uses inmates from area prisons to clean the sides of the roads, it only uses NDOT employees to clean the medians, McKenzie said.

Members of NDOT's roadside crews receive safety training preparing them for working on the median, but it is still a dangerous environment.

"Of course it's dangerous working on the median," he said.

During the cleanup crew members will set up traffic cones to slow down passing motorists.

NDOT has never used juveniles from the Clark County Department of Family and Youth Services, he said.

The department, which changed its name to the Department of Juvenile Justice July 1, came under scrutiny after six teenagers from its community service program were killed in 2000 while cleaning a roadside on the interstate. The department eliminated that program after the accident.

Gloria Fenster, community relations coordinator for the Department of Juvenile Justice, did not know whether the decision to eliminate the program was a direct result of the accident.

"It wasn't me who decided to do it, but it might have been because of the accident," Fenster said.

About 12 people will be working on next week's cleanup, McKenzie said. The work is expected to begin at 9 a.m. and end at 1:30 p.m.

For more information about this and other maintenance projects, visit NDOT's website at www.nvroads.com.