Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 11:01 a.m.
Up to 900 people could be forced to move from their homes as the ambitious plan to alter traffic flow along I-15 moves forward, state Transportation Department officials told residents and business owners along the route Wednesday.
Scores of residents attended a scoping meeting that night at the Clark County Government Center to hear a department presentation on Project Neon, the $600 million highway improvement project that would widen I-15 between the Spaghetti Bowl and Sahara Avenue, Bob McKenzie, a department spokesman, said.
Project officials are now expected to survey the residential and commercial tenants living and working in the roughly 250 buildings that would have to be leveled to make way for the improvements, project manager Dan McMartin said.
The estimated impact, which McMartin said is lower than the 400 buildings the department expected to have to raze, is part of a "worst-case" scenario of events. The actual impact could be less, depending on which design the department chooses, he said.
"This is all potential," McMartin said. "We have yet to do the environmental study to really look at the impacts of the projects."
Property owners and tenants' comments will then be used in the larger environmental impact statement, the next step in the larger National Environmental Policy Act process, he said. That process is likely to continue through mid-2006.
If it moves forward, construction could begin in 2008, according to the transportation department.
Owners displaced by the project will be able to sell their property at the department for fair market value, a process that usually negates the more aggressive eminent domain policy, in which the department obtains a court order to move ahead on the once-private property, McMartin said.
"The owner of the property can accept the offer or reject the offer and make a counter-offer if they like," he said. "We'll all come to an agreement. We don't force them out."
McMartin said the department will also work with tenants in the area, largely dominated by apartment buildings and strip malls, to ensure they are relocated in areas with similar public services.
The completed project is expected to include improvements to the I-15 and West Charleston Boulevard interchange and connect Martin Luther King Boulevard and Industrial Road, as well as improve access to the downtown redevelopment area, according to the department.
It's moving ahead as a Sierra Club lawsuits has put the brakes on another widening project along U.S. 95. That $370 million project was initially delayed in 2002 after the environmental advocacy group sued the Federal Highway Administration, saying the agency failed to adequately address environmental concerns caused by the increased traffic flow.
The project would expand U.S. 95 from six to 10 lanes. It was initially expected to be complete late next year.
If upheld, the suit could have major implications for Project Neon and highway improvement projects nationwide, McMartin said. In the meantime, state workers have been in touch with the Sierra Club and are working to improve pedestrian safety along the downtown redevelopment area to stave off any conflicts, he said.
"If the Sierra Club were to ultimately win the case, it could affect projects nationwide," McMartin said. "... That (their assertion that freeway emissions can cause cancer) has yet to be proven but it's something we'll look at."
More information on Project Neon is available at www.ndotprojectneon.com.
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