Motorists warned of closures as U.S. 95 work continues

Stephen Curran

Friday, Feb. 18, 2005 | 9:52 a.m.

A number of road improvement projects are expected to move forward this weekend, bringing with them a likely stream of temporary delays and detours, state Transportation Department officials said Wednesday.

The three separate closures, the first of which began at 9 p.m. Thursday, are part of the larger U.S. 95 widening project traffic planners say will boost the capacity of the already busy highway by increasing the size of existing portions of the road while adding new high-occupancy vehicle lanes on others.

A stretch of U.S. 95 at Rainbow Boulevard is expected to be closed Monday night as crews pour concrete for a new interchange that will link the highway to Summerlin Parkway. The road will close to traffic at 11 p.m. and is expected to reopen at 5 a.m. Tuesday, according to the department.

It will be the latest closure of that part of U.S. 95, which was closed in November as workers demolished an old bridge structure to make way for the $42 million interchange.

Motorists expecting to travel through that part of the highway between the late-night and early-morning hours will need to follow detours signs guiding them along nearby surface streets or find another route because work being done overhead will make it dangerous for drivers who would otherwise pass below, Bob McKenzie, an NDOT spokesman, said.

"If there were something that were to fall into traffic while they're pouring (the concrete) it would be dangerous," he said. "Public safety is the major reason we're closing it."

That part of U.S. 95 normally sees between 250,000 and 300,000 cars a day, a number the agency predicts will drop over the weekend.

This weekend's slew of construction work will kick off with a one-lane closure on northbound U.S. 95 and another along eastbound Summerlin Parkway. Each closure is expected to reopen at 5 a.m. Friday.

The U.S. 95 widening project has been beset by challenges in past years after the Sierra Club in 2002 filed a lawsuit claiming the Federal Highway Administration and other agencies, including NDOT, failed to adequately address environmental and health impacts from the $370 million project.

The ramps currently under construction are expected to be complete sometime this summer, while the rest of the project remains on hold while the lawsuit makes its way through court.

The entire expansion was initially expected to be complete by late 2006.