Cost of pedestrian bridges limiting where they’re built

Stephen Curran

Thursday, Dec. 9, 2004 | 9:57 a.m.

The elaborate bridges that guide pedestrians high above the congested intersections on Las Vegas Boulevard are credited with saving countless lives and millions of dollars in property damage.

Just don't expect to see them being built anywhere but on the Strip in the near future.

Work continued Wednesday morning on the latest of the $20 million structures at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue, a project that will eventually link the yet-unfinished Wynn Las Vegas, Treasure Island and Venetian resorts with the Fashion Show mall. The construction had left that busy section of the Strip closed from Sands Avenue to Desert Inn Boulevard.

Future closures are planned from 9 p.m. on Dec. 14 to 5 a.m. the next day. Traffic will also be stopped during the same times on Dec. 23, Bobby Shelton, a spokesman for Clark County Public Works, said.

The $20 million covers three sections of the four-way bridge. A first leg connecting the Venetian to Treasure Island was already standing when construction began.

The project -- built using room taxes and additional "participation funds" paid by the resort companies -- will ease congestion at the intersection at Spring Mountain Road, which becomes Sands Avenue to the east. That intersection sees about 100,000 cars a day, Shelton said.

"Much like those at (existing bridges at) Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana (Avenue), it will eliminate the conflict between vehicles and pedestrians," Shelton said. "You then hopefully minimize fender bender-type accidents because you don't have to worry about pedestrians in the way."

A recent study by the UNLV Transportation Research Center ranked Spring Mountain-Las Vegas Boulevard intersection as the fourth-deadliest in the county. Of the top 10 most dangerous intersections, the top five were all along the Strip; the other five were along Maryland Parkway.

But no plans are yet in the works to build an elevated pedestrian walkway -- or any other safety improvements -- on Maryland Parkway, Shelton said. A roughly four-mile stretch from that street's intersection with Tropicana Avenue to where it crosses Sahara rounded out the top 10 deadliest intersections.

The area has been popular with UNLV students and staff who frequently cross Maryland Parkway off Tropicana to restaurants and stores in strip malls that surround the university, Erin Breen, director of UNLV's Safe Community Partnership and a frequent critic of pedestrian safety in the Las Vegas Valley, said.

And, as much as the elevated crossings help, Breen said she did not expect to see any near UNLV.

"I think absolutely they (UNLV students and staff) would use them," Breen said. "But I don't know who would put up the money."

Neither Shelton nor Breen knew how many people crossed the intersection where the above-ground crossing is being built, but the crossing at the Strip and Tropicana sees between 90,000 and 105,000 people a day, Breen said.

"That's a huge amount of people who would be crossing in front of vehicles," she said. "You can imagine the impact it would have."

Las Vegas has long been among the most unsafe cities for pedestrians. A study released last week name the area as the 11th least pedestrian-friendly city, a four-spot jump from the year before.

The "Mean Streets" study, commissioned by the Surface Transportation Safety Project, used the area's per capita pedestrian deaths from 2002 and 2003 to reach their conclusion.

A Sun special report in June also found Nevada among the top 10 deadliest states for pedestrians, as experts blamed the its wide streets and laws that routinely put the blame solely on the victims.

By late last month, 33 pedestrians had died on Clark County roads in 2004, Metro Police said.

Stephen Curran can be reached at (702) 259-8815 or by e-mail at curran@lasvegassun.com.