Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

U.S. 95 project may pass on car pooling

While the $370 million widening project along U.S. 95 continues, a controversy over one aspect of the effort is quietly simmering. Some fear that plans to add car pool lanes will undercut the project's objective, which is to reduce traffic congestion on the freeway.

During the federally mandated environmental assessment process for the road work, local planners and governments told the Federal Highway Administration that the expansion would accommodate one new lane in each direction. The local and state government employees told their federal counterparts that the new lanes would be dedicated for car pools -- at least two people in a single vehicle.

But car pool lanes have never been used before in Las Vegas or Nevada. And public works officials from both Las Vegas and Clark County are quietly suggesting that it may be time to rethink car pooling. Their concern is that if the new lanes are only for car pools, but local drivers don't double up in their vehicles, then the huge project would not provide congestion relief.

"We don't believe it is the most bang for buck because of the way Southern Nevadans drive," Clark County Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said.

He said putting in car pool lanes "would be a long-term commitment," perhaps lasting for years before the region could conclusively say they work to reduce the number of cars on the highway.

The debate has been raging on the issue for years from coast to coast. Car pool lanes are ubiquitous on the West Coast, but still fuel intense opposition in California, Oregon and Washington.

Three years ago, New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman concluded a successful campaign to get rid of the lanes along federal roadways in her state.

But the Federal Highway Administration, which is funding up to 90 percent of U.S. 95's expansion, remains an advocate for car pool lanes -- in the bureaucratic vernacular, high-occupancy vehicle or HOV lanes.

Under the federal laws passed in 1990 and 1991, the agency encourages states and cities with traffic congestion and air-quality problems to add car pool lanes. Both criteria fit the Las Vegas situation.

When the controversial proposals to expand the roadway came forward in the 1990s, politicians mostly supported the effort to curb traffic jams on the road. Environmentalists and residents who would lose their homes to the project balked, but the project got a green light in 2000 to add lanes from Craig Road to Martin Luther King Boulevard, nearly 10 miles.

The green light federal "record of decision" came with an environmental assessment that also promised to add the car pool lanes.

Kent Cooper, Nevada Transportation Department assistant director, worries that taking the car pool lanes out of the plan could reopen the contentious environmental impact process.

"That is something we are not in favor of," he said dryly.

The state and the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission both continue to back car pool lanes. Both agencies foresee headaches dealing with the federal counterparts if a political and administrative tide forces them to rethink the option for U.S. 95.

Most importantly, the state and regional agencies join the federal government in arguing that the lanes work.

"We definitely see a benefit to the HOV lanes," Cooper said, who added that the state would like to see car pool lanes on other regional freeways, including the Las Vegas Beltway.

Others are not sure. Charles Kajkowski, Las Vegas chief of engineering planning, noted that studies from across the nation about the benefits of car pool lanes are ambiguous. "In places where they do have HOV lanes, there are some doubting Thomases about whether they really do what they are intended to do," he said. "We don't know. I think the jury is still out on whether this is an effective tool.

"The jury may be out for a long time, because it's going to take time before an effective lane of HOVs is installed.You can't do it from one interchange to another. You need to have some length."

Kajkowski also wondered whether Nevadans, sometimes noted for their idiosyncratic personalities, will warm to crowding into their cars for the morning commute.

"HOVs in Las Vegas is a brand new deal," he said. "It's a new thing in Nevada."

Cooper acknowledged that many Southern Nevada drivers will not immediately take to the lanes, and police will have to vigorously enforce the rules cutting out single-occupant vehicles.

But as traffic congestion worsens, more people will team up to ride in what engineers expect will be the fast lane, Cooper predicted.

"People will choose the alternative -- car pool, or take the bus, or whatever," he said.

The car pool opposition has already scored some points. Car pool lanes from Rainbow Boulevard to Craig Road were planned, but are for now on indefinite hiatus.

State engineers decided that five miles, the length of the stretch, would not be enough to efficiently run car pool lanes. Cooper said car pool lanes are usually at least five miles long and ideally longer.

To get 10 miles of car pool lanes, commuters looking for some togetherness and a faster shot through the Rainbow curve might have to wait until 2006, the expected opening date for the full, improved highway.

Cooper said the federal, state and regional officials -- with input from the city and county -- are working on a new plan on how and when car pool lanes will be added to the road. That plan could be finished within a year.

The grumbling from locals has not yet reached the point where federal officials are seriously considering changing their plans to ultimately use car pool lanes.

John Price, Federal Highway Administration division administrator, said he is not aware there even is a push to do away with the concept.

"We're still expecting that when U.S. 95 is complete it will have HOV lanes as outlined in the environmental impact statement," he said.

Car pool lanes will not only be important for commuters in their cars and sport utility vehicles, but also could accommodate regional transit for express buses from the fast-growing northwest to downtown and the Strip, Price said.

Price said the ultimate test for the lanes would come after they are up and running.

"If we don't build them, nobody is going to use them," he said.

Jerry Duke, a Regional Transit Commission planner, agreed. He said the infrastructure has to exist before a commuting culture of car poolers gets established in Las Vegas.

Duke and his colleagues are now plugging numbers into new car pool models from the federal government to gauge how many people and vehicles would ultimately use the lanes.

Those models could be out next month, in time for what will likely be many public meetings to discuss the issue, Duke said.

One man who will not embrace the idea of car pool lanes is Jim Sohns, president of the Nevada Car Owners Association.

"They don't work," Sohns said. "States all over have taken out the car pool lanes."

Sohns said he is a frequent visitor to a swap meet in Pomona, Calif., and so sees car pool lanes along Interstate 15. The lanes can become a safety hazard as drivers move in and out of them, he said.

And people in Nevada are not likely to start using them, he said. People here do not like to ride the bus either, Sohns noted.

The problem is that most Nevadans are individualistic and do not take to gathering together for short travel, he said.

"People don't connect personally so it would be difficult to get car pooling going," Sohns said.

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