I-515 signs at the on-ramp from Martin Luther King Boulevard, seen in September 2004. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Vehicles move along the southbound on-ramp for Interstate 11 at College Drive in Henderson in March 2021. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
The intersection of Interstate 15 and U.S. Route 93, seen at the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas in December 2017. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
This Las Vegas highway has so many names, it causes headaches for drivers.
Interstate 515? Check.
Las Vegas Expressway? Check.
U.S. Route 95? Check.
U.S. Route 93? Check.
Interstate 11? Check.
Your head is probably spinning right now. But why does the 14.4-mile highway have so many different designations?
The reason: the separate developments of the U.S. Highway and Interstate Highway systems.
While the U.S. Highway System was developed in the 1910s and 1920s, interstates weren’t developed until the late 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower, with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
U.S. 93 and 95 were built more than 40 years before Interstate 515 was constructed. The interstate was intended to improve access from Henderson to Las Vegas, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
Las Vegas’ highway history
U.S 93: It was first registered as part of the numbered highway system in 1927, along with U.S. 95 when the first U.S. highway log was approved. But the extension of U.S. 93’s route into the Las Vegas Valley didn’t get underway until the 1930s.
U.S. 93, also known as the Great Basin Highway, goes north on the east side of the valley along I-515 from south of Boulder City and connects with Interstate 15 at the downtown Spaghetti Bowl. The road continues with I-15 until the route passes Apex and reaches Exit 64, then diverges and continues north toward Ely.
U.S. 95: The segment of 95 into Las Vegas was not designated as part of the highway system until 1940. U.S. 95 also begins south of Boulder City like U.S. 93, but its southern end is in Yuma, Arizona, while U.S. 93 ends in Wickenburg, Arizona. The route continues north from Boulder City along I-515 and then continues northwest from the downtown Spaghetti Bowl toward Reno.
I-515: It was built in 1982 as a spur route of Interstate 15, according to Las Vegas historian and UNLV professor Michael Green.
The road designated Interstate 515 changes to Interstate 11 southbound after the interchange that connects I-515 to Interstate 215 and Lake Mead Parkway, sometimes referred to as the Henderson Spaghetti Bowl. I-11 continues southeast into Henderson and around Boulder City until it ends at the Nevada-Arizona border at Hoover Dam. The road then continues south toward Kingman, Arizona, as U.S. 93.
I-11: And just when you thought the highway’s name couldn’t get more complicated, the Nevada Department of Transportation came up with an idea.
In June 2022, NDOT announced that the alternative route for I-11 through the central valley would encompass the entirety of I-515 north of the Henderson highway interchange.
The interstate would continue past the downtown Spaghetti Bowl along U.S. 95 northwest toward Reno. The initial goal of building I-11 was to provide a major interstate between Las Vegas and Phoenix, the two largest metropolitan areas in the United States not connected by a major highway, with a longer term goal of extending the route from Mexico to Canada.
In Arizona, signs along U.S. 93 have marked the highway as the “Future I-11 Corridor” since 2014, according to previous Review-Journal reports.
But, if you still aren’t sure what to call the stretch of highway between downtown Las Vegas and Henderson, Green says, “Look at your map or GPS and just follow it.”
