Road project another example of Southern Nevada getting the shaft

Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015 | 2 a.m.

State officials recently approved a $100 million plan to extend a four-lane road to help the planned Tesla battery gigafactory east of Reno, and critics have targeted the move.

Under the plan, the state will turn the USA Parkway, which serves the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center along Interstate 80, into a highway that cuts south to U.S. 50. That will give the privately owned industrial park another access point, and Nevada will foot the bill, taking over the road and maintaining it.

As Kyle Roerink reported in the Las Vegas Sun, supporters of the project say it will help spur the economy. Critics say the real beneficiary is Storey County Commissioner Lance Gilman, an entrepreneur whose portfolio includes the industrial park and a brothel. Gilman and his partners in the industrial park have lobbied for a state-funded road for more than a decade, and they are expected to see the value of their land rise once the road is built.

Critics have blasted the road as a bad deal for the state.

Rudy Malfabon, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, acknowledged to the Sun that the project would benefit both Gilman and Nevada.

“We can’t argue the developers from the industrial center are going to have some money in their pockets,” Malfabon said. “But they did take the risk at building the center in the first place.”

The plan raises issues beyond the need for the roadway itself. This is an example of how state officials tend to favor projects in Northern Nevada and have failed to benefit the majority of the state.

For example, consider Malfabon’s words. If that’s the criteria state officials use in deciding where to build roads and provide state services, they have much to answer for.

In defending the new roadway, Gov. Brian Sandoval, who is the head of the state Transportation Board, which makes the final decisions on such projects, said there was a “critical need” to finish the road. He said it would “reduce commute times” for the people who will eventually work in the area once the battery factory opens in 2017. He added that the road would allow them “to be home for dinner.”

That is a wonderful sentiment, and something Southern Nevada drivers can consider as they idle in rush-hour traffic through their dinnertimes. Do state officials think about them and their commutes?

Malfabon notes the risk Gilman and his partners took, but if that is the way state officials make their decisions, why aren’t the risk-takers in Southern Nevada, the ones who built a thriving metropolis and the world-famous Strip, being supported in a similar way? After all, Southern Nevada’s economy paves the way for the rest of the state.

Unfortunately, Southern Nevada projects don’t seem to be as much of a priority as those up north. For example, in the past decade, the state built a six-lane highway between Reno and Carson City, the nation’s 117th- and 381st-largest metropolitan areas respectively.

Never mind that there was already a perfectly good four-lane highway that served the two cities.

As the state was building the half-a-billion-dollar interstate between Reno and Carson City, state transportation officials had a novel suggestion to ease traffic on Interstate 15 along the world-famous Strip: toll roads.

Yes, seriously.

In other words, northern drivers would be comped and southern drivers would have to pay their own way. (Not to mention pay into the state fund for the road up north.)

The toll road thankfully never gained traction, but that doesn’t mean Southern Nevada has been given fair consideration.

For years, Southern Nevada officials have been trying to gain state support for a plan to build an interstate between Las Vegas and Phoenix, the 31st- and the 12th-largest metropolitan areas in the nation respectively. They are the largest metropolitan areas in the nation to be without an interstate connection, but Nevada officials have taken the slow lane in considering the proposal despite a being asked to make a relatively small commitment.

The legislative delegation from Clark County hasn’t been able to make Southern Nevada more of a priority, and that is a shame.

The result will be this: When the latest project up north is finished, there will be three major routes, and 14 lanes of traffic, between Interstate 80 and U.S. 50, which serve the relatively small populations of Reno and Carson City.

And what will Southern Nevadans, who make up three-quarters of the state’s population, see? Longer commutes and less of their fair share.