Lane closures will delay Interstate 15 traffic near Primm

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2002 | 9:30 a.m.

Parts of Interstate 15 near the California border will be reduced to one lane in early December, as work on the $45 million highway widening project winds down, the state Transportation Department said Monday.

From 9 p.m. Monday until 6 a.m. Thursday, about 1.5 miles of the northbound side of I-15, from the state line to just past the Primm exit, will have only one lane open to traffic.

The southbound side of the highway in the same area will have only one lane open to traffic from 9 p.m. Dec. 9 until 6 a.m. Dec. 12.

The highway in that area normally has four traffic lanes, two for each direction. The lane closures are due to paving, according to a Transportation Department statement.

Department spokesman Robert McKenzie said travelers should be more careful and give themselves more time to travel through this area while the paving is under way.

The paving work is part of the final phase of the $45 million project to improve 35 miles of I-15 from the Interstate 215 interchange to the California border. The project began in August 2001, McKenzie said.

Already, sections of the highway have been widened, giving drivers three travel lanes for parts of the northbound side of the highway and most of the southbound side of the highway, McKenzie said.

A final paving of the new sections will be done once warmer weather returns in the spring, he said.

In the next several years, probably by 2004 or 2005, the project to finish widening the northbound side of the highway will be launched, he said.

"The southbound side was more important because people come here scattered over several days, but then Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon everyone says it's time to go home," McKenzie said.

I-15 carries an average of 60,000 vehicles a day past Interstate 215, and 30,000 vehicles a day past Primm, he said.