You were never allowed to drive through the dam, only over it on a narrow two-lane road. The road across the dam is US 93, one of the main thoroughfares between Nevada and Arizona, and a bottleneck of major proportions; the 14,000 cars and trucks that use it each day must slow down to a crawl to cross the dam, and that’s at the best of times. The dam, which has been ranked by national defense experts among the top five potential enemy targets in the western U.S., was closed to all traffic for two days after the events of Sept. 11, 2001; bus and truck traffic was rerouted through Laughlin for several more days.
In order to alleviate traffic congestion and security concerns, the Federal Highway Administration is building a new bridge to span the mighty Colorado River at Sugarloaf Mountain, roughly 1,500 feet downstream from Hoover Dam. Construction on the $235 million bridge began in 2002, involving a team of 350 engineers and technical professionals, plus an additional 1,200 construction workers, laboring on- and off-site. The plan has been called "one of the most complicated projects in the world" by traffic engineers, and is not scheduled for completion until the latter part of 2008. As Dave Zanetell, Manager of the Hoover Dam Bypass, puts it, "It's not only a unique technical challenge, but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to construct a new engineering landmark in the shadow of an existing world-famous one."
When the bypass opens to the public, through-traffic and trucks will no longer be permitted onto Hoover Dam, although it will remain accessible to visitors. For now, construction progress can be viewed at www.hooverdambypass.org/Construction_Activities.htm by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and hitting the Hoover Dam Bypass Webcam link. (At the time of this writing, the cameras were in the process of being relocated, but we're assured that they will be up and running again soon.)
