Traffic Alert

From the R-J newspaper:  “For the next six weeks, repaving work on Interstate 15 will cause around-the-clock lane closures between Tropicana Avenue and the Spaghetti Bowl.”

That news, coupled with I-Really-Don’t-Know-What-They-Are-Doing-But-It-Is-A-Mess” work around I-15 and Blue Diamond, demands some exploration of new driving routes that don’t include freeway gridlock.  Here are some of our “secret” driving hints.

For a long time now we have favored Industrial Road, and we are slowly getting used to its new name, Dean Martin Drive.  It starts downtown and you can take it south all the way to the M Casino, with easy exits along the way to Palace Station, the West Flamingo casinos (Palms, Gold Coast, Rio), Silverton, and South Point.  If you watch, there is even a little exit to the west (I forget the name of that little circle street) that will take you up to Hacienda/Mandalay Bay Road and give you easy access to the back of these casinos:  Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur.  That is also a good street – not so busy – to get across the Strip and hit Koval Lane on the Eastside to access Hard Rock, Ellis Island, Tuscany, and Terrible’ s.  Koval can also take you north to Spring Mountain, where you can easily park in the Palazzo garage and walk to the attached Venetian or take the sky-walk over to Wynn.  Also Spring Mountain is usually not quite as much a hassle crossing the Strip as Flamingo or Trop.  Although if driving across Las Vegas Boulevard gives you nightmares, your best bet is to take Desert Inn, which goes under the Strip!

We don’t play on the Strip as much as we used to, but we used to use Frank Sinatra Drive as a back-way to get into some casinos on the west side of the Strip.  And if you want to avoid the Strip entrance to NYNY, you can enter a side entrance from Tropicana.  Coming from the East it is a simple right turn-off.  Coming from the West on Trop it is a little tricky.  Watch for a very small sign just beyond the turnoff for I-15 that guides you into a special east-bound lane that looks like it is in the west-bound lanes!

Although streets get closed frequently, like Warm Springs, which used to give you a way to go over I-15 from Dean Martin to the Strip, more streets are opening up.  Sunset now continues west from Las Vegas Boulevard, over the freeway, to Valley View, with construction in progress to continue it much further west.  We often use the newly extended Decatur, able now to continue south on it beyond I-215 and access east-west Warm Springs.

If you have an old Las Vegas city map, you might be surprised how out-dated it is.  A new one might give you some new “secret” shortcuts to make your driving around town easier.   And if you have some favorites you’d like to share with us, feel free to put them in the Comments!