Question of the Day - 05 December 2020

What you’re seeing, at least within Las Vegas city limits, is a wide-ranging project that broke ground last April 27. It affects Las Vegas Boulevard from Stewart Avenue to Sahara Avenue, Bridger Avenue from 13th Street to Las Vegas Boulevard, and Third Street from Utah Avenue to Colorado Avenue. The Las Vegas Department of Public Works says it has never undertaken anything so massive. The facets of the job include:

1) Removal of existing medians (although their trees will be preserved)

2) Additional illuminated neon signs in the new median

3) Replacement of sewers, water lines, storm drains, gas lines and civic fiber-optic infrastructure

4) Replacement of traffic signals

5) Reconstruction of curbs and gutters

6) Addition of bus stops

7) Planting of 200 new trees

8) Two new right-turn pockets at the Charleston Boulevard and Stewart Avenue intersections

Don’t expect relief anytime soon. It’s a three-year initiative, with all the affected arteries being worked on simultaneously. It’s also probably overdue. The City of Las Vegas says that the extant storm drains and waterlines date back to the mid-fifties (making them 75 years old), while traffic signals are relatively newbies, installed as recently as ... 1965. The sewer system is a real dinosaur, hailing back to 1942. The cost of the overhaul is officially pegged at $125 million, with funding provided by the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission’s Fuel Revenue Indexing tax, Las Vegas Valley Water District, the city of Las Vegas and the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial.

At the time of this writing, between Stewart and Charleston, traffic on Carson Avenue is pushed to one half of the street, northbound Las Vegas Boulevard access to Fourth Street is closed, Bridger Avenue is closed between Las Vegas Boulevard and Seventh Street through January 8, and traffic on Bridger is pushed to the south side of the street.  

On Las Vegas Boulevard between Stewart and Charleston, traffic is one lane in each direction with left turn pockets at major intersections. From Charleston to Oakey it’s the same. From Oakey to Sahara Avenue (the southern city limit), traffic is one lane in each direction with left turn pockets at major intersections.

As for disruption you may be encountering outside city limits, Clark County Public Information Officer Dan Kulin explains, “What you are seeing is a major improvement project that goes from Sahara to Spring Mountain Road. The project includes waterline replacement, street light upgrades, communication upgrades, 5G cell site integration, lane widening, repaving pedestrian safety upgrades, and traffic signal improvements. The work started in December 2019 and is scheduled to be completed June 2021.”

Oh, good … but wait: “There will be additional phases similar to the current project along Las Vegas Boulevard over the next several years.”