Southwest stretch of beltway to open Thursday

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Las Vegas Beltway work crews and transportation planners are delivering an early Christmas present to motorists in the southwest end of the valley.

The 2.8-mile stretch of the beltway between Decatur Boulevard and Buffalo Drive is to open as a traditional freeway on Thursday. At that section there will be no forced detour off Interstate 215 and no more traffic lights.

The $25.7 million roadway will add to the roughly 6.5 miles of true interstate on the highway's southern side between Decatur Boulevard and Gibson Road in Henderson. It will transform what is now a slow-moving four-lane road dotted with traffic lights into a faster-moving freeway, Bobby Shelton, a spokesman for Clark County Public Works, said.

"It will help that region of the valley by providing them (the drivers) with a more efficient roadway facility where people traveling on the beltway will not have to encounter the at-grade intersections," he said.

State and county officials have touted the beltway project, currently a patchwork of stretches that resemble a high-speed freeway and others that are broken by stoplights, as a large-scale urban roadway that will alleviate the clogged surface streets increasingly present in Clark County, Shelton said.

Thursday's opening will be the most recent addition to the beltway project, 12 years and almost $900 million in the making. Question 10, the $2.7 billion tax package passed by voters in 2002, is expected to provide most of the funding for the beltway, roughly $655 million, the Regional Transportation Commission has said.

Construction of the next two pieces, which will continue from Buffalo Drive to West Sunset Road and from Sunset to Hualapai Way, is expected to begin in February and should be finished by the end of 2006, Shelton said.

The entire project, which will form a half-circle around the western part of the valley and pass U.S. 95 before connecting with I-15 north of Nellis Air Force Base, is still nine years from being completed, he said.

The county's original plan had called for each piece to be finished in order, which means the beltway would not yet stretch to Summerlin Parkway. Early estimates had said that plan could take to 2020, Shelton said.

By building a preliminary four-lane road, engineers have accelerated the project by at least seven years, Shelton said.

"I think we're ahead of the original concept," he said. "We're on track (to open by the end of 2013) at this point."

Shelton said he did not know how much time the newest stretch to open would save for the drivers who routinely travel that stretch of road, although a recent study released by the Texas Transportation Institute in September showed a modest improvements in traffic delays in the Las Vegas Valley.

According to the study, Las Vegas drivers wasted 27 hours in traffic in 2002, down from 28 the previous year and 33 hours in 2000. The findings put Las Vegas 42nd among the 85 cities studied.

The highway, known in its completed portions as Interstate 215, has been the site of 11 fatal crashes this year, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol, although statistics provided by the agency indicate most of those occurred on the southeast portion of the highway.

Of the accidents that have occurred this year, one happened at the beltway and Rainbow Boulevard, now a four-way stop that will become a highway on-ramp Thursday.

Ingrid Reisman, a spokeswoman for the RTC, said the full freeway will cause a "minimal" shift in commute times but will increase the average speed on the road to 60 mph, allowing drivers to cover roughly a mile a minute.

The approximately 86,000 drivers who the county estimates travel through that area have created a free-for-all on southwest Las Vegas roads, including the beltway, Trooper Angie Chavera said.

"I do know that with the congestion and the build-up and the homes out there, the traffic is overwhelming," Chavera said. "It's a real mess so we're excited to get going. It always helps to have that smooth highway area. When you've got a 55 mph highway and you've got people yielding it can be a real mess."

Andy Maline, a Las Vegas real estate broker, said he drives on that part of the beltway at least three times a week from his office at Charleston Boulevard and Durango Drive.

Maline said he was more understanding than many drivers about any delays caused by the improvements.

"It's a lot better than fighting the traffic on I-15," Maline, who is also a member of the RTC's citizens advisory committee, said. "It's kind of bottleneck (on the beltway) but it goes with the territory. It's getting better."

Some of his clients, however, are not as understanding.

"I hear it both ways," he said of showing prospective buyers homes in newly built southwest neighborhoods. "For some people it doesn't really matter and they know it's going to improve. Others just want to get from Point A to B quickly."

The new roadway is also expected to be a boon to businesses like the Blackjack Lodge, a restaurant in the 6200 block of Rainbow Boulevard, less than two miles from the highway.

Since construction began, the near-gridlock at the end of I-215 has taken a toll on business, as drivers routinely try to avoid the road and, thus, avoid the restaurant, Chef Beau Demato said.

"The way it (the near-constant congestion) has been, it hasn't been good for us at all," he said Friday. "People don't want to even come to Rainbow. ... We see on Fridays, like today, it's backed up all the way to Russell Road (about five miles away). It's a real mess so we're excited about it" opening.