Home stretch: Final leg of beltway will open Wednesday

Monday, Nov. 24, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.

After 11 years and almost $900 million, the Las Vegas Beltway will provide motorists with a roadway embracing three sides of the metropolitan area Wednesday.

Political leaders, contractors and dozens of Clark County employees will gather under the overpass at Hualapai Way to cut the ribbon Tuesday on the beltway's final 4 1/2-mile section from Lone Mountain Road to El Capitan Way. The entire length of the 53-mile road should be open to motorists Wednesday.

"The beltway is a just a fantastic achievement, a great partnership between Clark County the residents of Clark County," said John Ritter, chief executive office of Focus Property Group, a company with ties to commercial and residential development along the road. "It has spurred development all along its path as it has opened up."

The beltway, also known on its fully completed portions as Interstate 215, will be the gateway to the 1,200-acre Cliff's Edge master-planned community that Focus is building in the northwest valley, Ritter said. The company also owns commercial property at El Capitan and the beltway.

One of the advantages for developers is that the beltway, and opening dates for its various stretches, have "been something you could rely on," he said. So even before the road sections have opened to traffic, development has blossomed around the highway.

"Developers and residents, residential and commercial builders, and churches and schools -- everybody's been watching the beltway and planning in anticipation of it," he said.

"This is kind of that last bit of railroad the created the Intercontinental Railroad," Ritter said. "It connects the north and south. It creates a whole new world in terms of access and traffic flows on the west side of the city."

Since 1996, Clark County Public Works, leading an army of other state and local agencies, contractors and other partners, has targeted the end of this year for completion of the so-called "initial facility." But in another sense the roadwork is way ahead of schedule.

A decade ago, the plan was to have a full interstate highway in place -- but with the available funding sources, that would not have been completed until 2020. County commissioners in 1996 decided that the explosive population growth, much of it clustered on the south, west and north sides which the beltway serves, couldn't wait that long.

So they decided to go with a road that is mostly two lanes in either direction and punctuated with stop lights. The plan is to keep building to the full interstate specifications, but the initial roadway is still an achievement, Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said.

"These initial facilities are a significant boost for our transportation network," Woodbury said. "I can't imagine what traffic would be like without the beltway's initial facilities in place. We've made great progress, but clearly we have a lot yet to do."

The only portion of the beltway that is truly an interstate highway is the 6.5 miles on the highway's south side between Decatur Boulevard and Gibson Road in Henderson. Already, suburban drivers rely on Interstate 215 for easy access from the southeast to the Strip and Interstate 15 -- a year ago, traffic officials counted 120,560 cars a day traveling the beltway between Windmill Parkway and Eastern Avenue.

The work to build the full interstate will add another $800 million or so to the final price tag, according to Public Works and Regional Transportation Commission figures.

Ingrid Reisman, an RTC spokeswoman, said Question 10, a multi-element tax package passed last year by Clark County voters, will provide the bulk of the funding -- about $655 million. Another $104 million will come from pre-existing development and motor vehicle taxes.

And in a departure from the previous model, which relied on local funding, the region will turn to the federal government for $84 million to complete the full highway, Reisman said.

The bigger, better and, officials hope, safer highway is already under construction. Traffic safety specialists believe that the interstate system is inherently safer than start-and-stop traffic, especially on a roadway which has a design that seems to encourage some drivers to speed, sometimes with fatal results.

"We have started," Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said Friday. The first major upgrade is underway and goes from Decatur Boulevard to Buffalo Driver, and is expected to be complete by the end of 2004.

Commissioner Chip Maxfield, whose constituents in the valley's northwest are increasingly turning to the beltway as a transportation option, said the full road will be welcome, but so will the last stretch of the initial road.

"This is a major milestone for our community," Maxfield said. "For the first time, our residents will be able to drive the entire 53 miles of the beltway without interruption. This is really going to make life a lot easier for many of our motorists."