Editorial: Sierra Club should drop U.S. 95 suit

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 8:45 a.m.

The Sierra Club could do all of Southern Nevada a big service by just dropping its federal lawsuit against the state project to widen U.S. 95 between Rainbow Boulevard and the Spaghetti Bowl. Every day the project is delayed by this suit means more pollution as tens of thousands of cars idle or inch along the currently overburdened highway. Normal highway speeds, on the other hand, would cut emissions significantly, not to mention saving drivers oceans of time.

The lawsuit, filed in April 2002, was rejected in March by U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro. The environmental group appealed, however, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week put at least a temporary halt to the project. Preparations, including grading of the land and the building of sound walls and overpasses, can continue. Actual construction of additional lanes, however, which the state had been planning to start in September, is now postponed until after the appeal can be heard.

The Sierra Club filed the suit on behalf of people who live near that section of the highway, which is planned to go from six lanes to 10 lanes. More lanes, more cars, more pollution -- so goes the environmental group's reasoning. Yet with housing and commercial developments now stretching north on U.S. 95 all the way to the Kyle Canyon turnoff, the traffic is already there, creating a crippling bottleneck between the Rainbow Curve and the Spaghetti Bowl, and, in reality, for several exits beyond those two points.

With the lawsuit now causing an indefinite delay, the traffic and pollution will just get worse. The Sierra Club's unrealistic alternative is a light rail system, which would take a decade or two to build even if there was a budget for it. Light rail is a nice idea for the future, but right now we need the extra lanes a lot more than we need a lawsuit.