Access roads turn into onramps

OK, Miss Smarty Pants Road Warrior, if you are supposed to be so intimate with our valley’s roadways, why do you find yourself traveling east on Interstate 215 when the intent was to be headed west?

Because with the near completion of the Interstate 15 design-build, the access roads, the new placement of the exits, everything is confusing at first.

Routes so familiar I could drive them with my eyes closed are gone. Cars just appear out of nowhere, and you feel as though you’re negotiating a human maze, only in a car.

It’s not that the signage is bad; it’s all so unexpected. You follow the signs to Interstate 15 but still wonder when – if ever – you will be on the freeway side of the jersey wall where you were told you would be.

That happened on the attempt to head toward Los Angeles from Interstate 215 east. It’s a good two-mile trek on an access road before you actually join the freeway.

One reader, Regan, put it bluntly: “What the heck is going on with these access roads to and from the 15 to the 215? When did onramps turn into access roads?”

It’s unfamiliar to Southern Nevadan motorists, but in my opinion, once we get the hang of them, it will be a more efficient system. Drivers do their merging on those frontage-type roads, and that frees up I-15, allowing motorists to travel to the north and south ends of the valley more quickly.

Jo expressed concerns about the access to Town Square and pleaded: “Perhaps you will be able to keep me from being killed.”

Whoa, that’s a huge responsibility. Jo said when exiting Interstate 215 west onto Las Vegas Boulevard North, it’s impossible to move left quickly enough to turn into the shopping center.

I gave that a shot and she’s right. Motorists must jet across four lanes of traffic to make that left-hand turn. The only jetting going on down there is the Southwest Airlines plane that skims the roof of your car. Forget it. Northbound traffic on the Boulevard is thick and unrelenting.

Jo found a solution: Pull into the Callaway Golf Center and turn around to catch a signalized intersection that leads into Town Square. I’d say stick with that plan.

It’s certainly a flaw and one it would seem the Town Square folks – who had a flyover built to ease ingress and egress – might be upset about. With a new lane divider at the offramp at Las Vegas Boulevard, the flyover is in the rearview mirror by the time you make the turn.

I’m no traffic engineer, but I noticed a couple of other hiccups during my 45-mile drive on and off and around the Interstate 215-15 interchange.

When entering I-15 north from Russell Road, the freeway entrance is only a half-mile away and on the left. The distance seems long, but when battling throngs of motorists who exited I-15 miles south trying to get to Tropicana Avenue, it’s not easy.

And if motorists exit at Frank Sinatra Drive – which shares an I-15 off-ramp with Russell Road and Tropicana – and wish to make a right turn, they are seriously placing themselves in a dangerous situation.

Frank Sinatra has a sharp turn just before that intersection. It might seem as though the coast is clear; then a car doing 60 mph pops up from the left. It’s frightening.

It was hot in my black car with black leather seats. Very hot. I was melting and my brain was going first, straying from the mission at hand.

Drivers were rude and that brought up another column idea: Do road rage incidents increase in the summer? A Bikram yoga studio made me wonder if those workouts are a breeze, literally, when it’s a hundred million degrees outside. And I realized I’m still creeped out by the Mandalay Bay griffins built to win the feng shui war with the MGM Grand’s entrance lion.

See? My mind was melting.

The point of my little adventure is that I can comprehend your frustrations with the new configuration. That’s the case with any unfamiliar road system.

But it is my belief that Las Vegans will embrace the access roads and relocation of ramps. We will probably look back years from now and wonder how in the heck we survived without them.

If you have a question, tip or tirade, call Adrienne Packer at 702-387-2904, or send an email to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com. Include your phone number.