Editorial: Give BC bypass vote a chance

Monday, Feb. 6, 2006 | 12:31 p.m.

With traffic from southeastern Nevada and northwestern Arizona vastly increasing through Boulder City, the mayor of the sparsely populated but land-rich city is proposing a plan that would put a proposed federally funded highway bypass on the fast track.

In his State of the City address, Mayor Bob Ferraro proposed selling a 1,531-acre city-owned parcel and using the funds - possibly $400 million or more - to speed up construction of the 10-mile bypass. As it stands, because of federal budget constraints, the highway project is not scheduled to begin until 2025. This portends a major problem - a new bridge over Hoover Dam is set for completion in 2008, and projections show another 8,000 vehicles a day will be using U.S. 93 through Boulder City as the immediate result.

Clearly, a traffic crisis awaits Boulder City if work on the bypass does not get under way soon. Heavy traffic could take the joy out of a day trip to the city for visitors, and if that happens, Boulder City's tourism-based economy could suffer greatly.

The Boulder City charter requires that all land sales go before the voters. That is a fair requirement, one that has kept the city's population down, as growth is a hard sell on the ballot. But growth is occurring all around the city, outside of the residents' power to block it, and it is bringing major changes. Still, many anti-growth residents vote no on land sales as a matter of principle.

One group, the Coalition to Save the Future of Boulder City, is threatening to sue the city if it moves to put Ferraro's suggestion on the ballot. We believe this is an extreme reaction. The city is in a difficult position and Ferraro has offered an innovative solution to ward off a crisis. We believe the city's residents would learn a lot more about Ferraro's plan during a campaign, and should have the chance to express their views about it at the ballot box.