RTC to urge funding for Boulder City bypass

Friday, July 11, 2003 | 8:57 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday resolved to nudge the state's congressional delegation to seek funding for a Boulder City bypass.

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow told the commissioners, including new member and Boulder City Councilman Roger Tobler, that the expected completion of a new bridge across the Colorado River, just south of Hoover Dam, would mean heavy traffic in the small town.

Local and state agencies in Nevada and Arizona are still looking for federal funding to complete the Hoover Dam bridge work, but it is expected to be completed in five to six years, Snow said. When it is done the freight and tourism bottleneck on the existing road over the dam will be gone, and the new bottleneck will be Boulder City's traffic lights, he said. The road to Arizona from Las Vegas goes through the heart of the town.

The resolution adopted unanimously by the RTC board, which is made up of representatives elected to the various local governments in Clark County, endorsed the bypass, which would loop outside the town. The resolution also asks the congressional delegation to push to have the project designated a federal "project of regional significance and worthy of federal funding."

The resolution also notes that Boulder City and the RTC have agreed to pursue funding sources outside Nevada's allocation from the Federal Highway Trust Fund "to avoid competition for funding with other previously identified transportation funding priorities."

Snow said after the vote that the $360 million price tag for the Boulder City bypass was not likely to be funded by the highway trust fund. The funding priorities are established in five-year increments in Congress, and the next increment is now being negotiated in Washington.

But Congress could allocate funds from other sources, including defense department authorization, for the work, he said.

Snow said he does not know when the bypass would be built if it receives funding.

However, Nevada Department of Transportation Assistant Director Kent Cooper told the RTC board that one milestone in the potential construction is likely to come soon.

Cooper said a federal decision on the environmental impact study of the planned project would likely come within the next several months.