Flamingo Road construction to begin by early April

You’re going to become good friends in the next year and a half.

Motorists can expect to see disruptions on Flamingo Road by the end of the month or early April after the Regional Transportation Commission on Tuesday kicked off a $40.3 million improvement project on one of Southern Nevada’s busiest east-west thoroughfares.

The 14-mile project will be divided into four sections so that the entire length of Flamingo won’t be impacted at the same time.

When road crews begin distributing cones closing off one of three travel lanes in each direction they’ll work first between Grand Canyon Drive and Rainbow Boulevard and between Las Vegas Boulevard and Eastern Avenue. Once that work is completed by the end of the year, crews will shift to between Rainbow Boulevard and Hotel Rio Drive and between Eastern Avenue and Jimmy Durante Boulevard, completing efforts by fall 2016.

Improving safety is the key benefit of the project.

Workers will resurface and restripe 7 miles of the road, install more than 100 new bus transit shelters, upgrade traffic signals, improve traffic flow with the installation of intelligent transportation system technology, improve pedestrian crosswalks, restrict left turns from driveways and unsignaled intersections by installing channeled left-turn lanes and beautify the median with non-irrigated decorative landscaping.

During construction, officials are encouraging motorists to use parallel streets as alternative routes, including Tropicana Avenue, Desert Inn Road and Sahara Avenue. The Transportation Department has promised to coordinate work on the Flamingo project with an upcoming improvement program on nearby Tropicana.

The street skirts the northern end of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus, is home to two hospitals and several medical offices. It intersects Maryland Parkway, the scene of a future street improvement program. The Flamingo intersection with Las Vegas Boulevard, one of the city’s busiest, is home to Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Bally’s and the Cromwell.

Several elected officials attended a kickoff event for the project Tuesday morning.

“This project is vital to our ability to move people, goods and services efficiently east to west through this busy area,” said Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, who chairs the RTC board of directors.

County commissioners Chris Giunchigliani, another RTC board member, and Mary Beth Scow also addressed the gathering as did Reps. Dina Titus, D-Nev., and Cresent Hardy, R-Nev. Titus and Hardy serve on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and helped steer a $13.3 million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant to the project.

In addition to the federal TIGER grant, the project is getting $18 million from the Nevada Transportation Department, $8 million in fuel-revenue-indexing funds, $800,000 from the Federal Transit Administration and $200,000 from the RTC.

Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce chairman-elect John Guedry rounded out the speakers addressing the nearly 100 people in attendance.

Showgirls from Bally’s “Jubilee” show popped out of a parked RTC bus at the groundbreaking event and performed a short choreographed routine backed by the Durango High School band. Officials also passed out cupcakes frosted with pink flamingos at the event.

Flamingo connects to 15 RTC bus routes, including 11 residential routes, three express routes and the Deuce route on the Las Vegas Strip. Bus routes on Flamingo carry 12,000 riders a day making it the most utilized residential route in the RTC system. An estimated 90,000 vehicles a day use the road.

Las Vegas Paving is the contractor for the project, which is creating 168 jobs through the fuel-tax-indexing fund program.

For RTC, the groundbreaking was the first of two major Southern Nevada projects on its calendar. Next month, the RTC, in another collaboration with the Transportation Department, will break ground on the Interstate 11 Boulder City bypass.

Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter. Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.