Editorial: Commuters win one

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

The Sierra Club has dropped a lawsuit against the federal government and the state of Nevada, legal action that has temporarily shut down work on an important widening project on U.S. 95. This is good news, particularly for motorists who live in northwest Las Vegas and use the congested highway to commute between home and work. The $370 million project to widen the highway from six to 10 lanes between Rainbow Boulevard and the Spaghetti Bowl has been in jeopardy since the Sierra Club filed its lawsuit in 2002; last July the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted lane building while it considered the case. The Sierra Club alleged that the Federal Highway Administration and Nevada Transportation Department didn't sufficiently take into account the adverse health impacts to people, including children who attend schools close to the highway, from increased t raffic once the additional lanes were built.

In return for the Sierra Club dropping the lawsuit, local, state and federal agencies agreed to a number of concessions, such as installing pollution monitoring and air filtration systems, which are supposed to reduce air pollution, at the nearby schools. Also, three portable buildings at a kindergarten playground will be moved farther away from the highway. The Clark County School District will use $1 million to retrofit its buses so that they reduce diesel emissions. Additionally, a study will be conducted to check vehicle emissions at five highway locations across the country to evaluate the levels of toxic air pollutants from vehicles.

We've pointed out before that the Sierra Club's lawsuit, not additional traffic lanes on U.S. 95, posed the greater danger to public health. If the environmental group had been successful in permanently shutting down the widening project, more congestion would have occurred, resulting in even more pollution because cars produce more emissions when they are idling. The Sierra Club believed light rail, rather than more lanes for vehicles, was better for the environment and public health. The problem with this logic, however, was that the widening project already was far along in its development and that further delays only served to make pollution worse, not better.

Gov. Kenny Guinn says now that the lawsuit has been resolved, work on the widening project should resume by this fall. The bottom line is that the project must get up and running again as fast as possible -- we've already suffered enough congestion and delays caused by the Sierra Club's misguided lawsuit.