North leg of beltway to open

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

The piece of the Las Vegas Beltway connecting U.S. 95 to Interstate 15 in North Las Vegas will open to traffic tonight, and some area elected leaders say the new road will spur development in the surrounding desert and ease traffic on nearby roads.

The new $37.8 million stretch of about eight miles of beltway will bring the road to I-15 from its intersection with Decatur Boulevard east of U.S. 95. This new portion of the beltway will be opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for 5 p.m. at the intersection of the beltway and Losee Road.

"This will open up our whole northern section of the city," North Las Vegas Councilwoman Shari Buck said, adding that the beltway will be the northernmost paved road in that area.

"Those who own land in that area can build now because they will have access," she said.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said, "People are going to be floored by how much it changes driving patterns and development patterns. ... This means everything in the northeast will be connected to the southwest."

It won't be a drive straight through to the southwest, however. The last portion of the beltway -- 6.5 miles from El Capitan Way curving around to Cheyenne Avenue -- is not expected to be completed until the end of next year.

Still, Stephen Baxter, acting director of the city Development Services Department, agreed the new road should lead to new development.

"When you look at the other parts of the beltway in the valley, if development wasn't already there when the beltway was built, it wasn't long until development began occurring near it," Baxter said.

Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said the completion of this part of the beltway "will make it easier to get to work from the northwest."

She and Buck also said the new U.S. 95 to I-15 connection should relieve some of the traffic congestion on nearby Craig and Ann roads and Cheyenne Avenue.

After the ceremonial ribbon-cutting, barricades on I-15 and at Decatur Boulevard now blocking traffic from entering the new piece of the beltway will be removed, Clark County Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said.

The new piece of road should be open to traffic about 10 tonight, he said.

The new section of the beltway is four lanes wide, with two lanes for traffic in each direction. The speed limit will be 45 mph, Shelton said.

Initially, the only new intersection on this part of the beltway will be at Losee Road. There will be stop signs for north-south traffic on Losee Road, but beltway traffic will not be directed to stop at the intersection, Shelton said.

Eventually, five more north-south roads will be extended and intersect with this section of the beltway, he said.

With the opening of this section of the beltway, 46.5 miles of the beltway's planned 53-mile length will be open.

Once the final section is finished, the county will focus on "upgrading it into a full freeway ... making intersections interchanges," Shelton said.

Under a proposal unveiled Sept. 16 that transformation could be completed by 2012, 13 years ahead of schedule.

That schedule depends on a $2.7 billion tax initiative for road building and other transportation needs that will come before voters this November.

The initiative could be paired with federal money to cover the $840 million cost of building the full freeway. The only part of the road now up to federal interstate highway standards is a 10-mile stretch from Gibson Road to Decatur Boulevard on the south side of the Las Vegas Valley.