Brighter Vegas express lanes might not fix dim drivers
If all has gone according to plan, a fresh coat of paint containing thousands of reflective glass beads is drying on the express lanes on the surface of Interstate 15 as you read this.
Nevada Department of Transportation crews were scheduled to be at work from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. It caused some temporary inconvenience since the traffic flow was reduced to four lanes.
But thanks to those reflective beads embedded in the paint, the striping will provide motorists a visible assist under the glow of their headlights.
If only the drivers were as bright as those stripes will be.
When the $1.5 billion Project Neon Spaghetti Bowl redesign effort comes to an end, the express lanes as we know them will cease to exist.
A key portion of Project Neon will be to build a new two-way flyover ramp for high-occupancy vehicles. It will link southbound U.S. Highway 95 to southbound I-15 and northbound I-15 to northbound U.S. 95.
The express lanes that now begin and end between the Sahara Avenue and Spring Mountain Road I-15 exits will flow all the way to the Spaghetti Bowl.
That means if you’re one of those commuters who has a passenger or two on board during rush hour, you’ll be able to use the new flyover and get yourself out of that awful 95-to-15 merge.
When the project is done, the existing express lanes will become a single HOV lane instead on the far left side of the road. The second express lane will become a general use lane. So there will be one HOV lane for the car-poolers and an additional lane of traffic for everybody else.
The express lanes made their first appearance in 2010 after the idea of creating a separation between tourist and local commuter traffic was initiated in 2008.
The Transportation Department wrangled most of the $21.8 million it took to develop the express lanes from the budget of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which saw state lawmakers redistribute some of its marketing dollars to a transportation project that presumably benefited tourists.
After the initial paint job, the express lanes were further enhanced — some say “further ruined” — with the installation of a series of 4-foot plastic delineator posts called “candlesticks.”
That didn’t work out so well because drivers kept obliterating them by changing lanes through them.
And that, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the express-lane concept. NDOT builds a well-thought-out means to improve the flow of traffic and motorists just ignore them as if they’re just another traffic lane.
When the department changed the configuration of southbound I-15’s exit to the Las Vegas Beltway it pretty much surrendered on express lanes. The candlesticks are gone. Now, in places where motorists might want to exit the express lanes to get on the Beltway there are broken lines instead of a solid white line marking the exit zone.
So here’s how it’s all supposed to work. If you want to be in the express lanes, move over to the left (there are overhead signs warning of their impending presence).
Stay in those express lanes until you get to the broken line or until the two lanes merge and become one south of the Beltway.
The rules, per the Department of Transportation, are to not pass out of or into the express lanes except where that broken line exists.
It should be noted that HOV lanes are different. On U.S. 95, there’s only one lane to the far left and even though it’s a solid white the length of the lane, you can pass in and out whenever you want if you have two or more people in the vehicle during designated hours. That same rule applies in the single express lane south of the Beltway.
But we all know what’s going to happen.
Call me cynical, but I’m confident motorists will continue to treat the express lanes as just another pair of regular traffic lanes because they either don’t care or they just feel privileged.
It’s the same old discourteous motorist routine, with or without a fresh coat of paint.
BELTWAY SLOWDOWN
Two Warrior readers complained recently that traffic was getting bogged down on the northwestern portion of the Las Vegas Beltway.
Warrior reader Dean tweeted @RJroadwarrior: What’s the deal with 215 northbound always backed up from Lone Mountain all the way to Cheyenne? Especially at 5:00. Crazy!
Clark County, which maintains that portion of the Beltway, also found that crazy, Dean.
County officials investigated and determined that the traffic-light wait times on the Beltway at Lone Mountain Road and Ann Road needed to be adjusted. Last week, that was supposed to have been completed.
That portion of the Beltway is always going to be busy, especially for going-home traffic in the rapidly growing northwest at that time of day. There’s also a Clark County School District bus yard in the neighborhood, and those lumbering buses aren’t able to accelerate as well as the rest of the traffic.
Luckily, all this goes away when the Beltway is built to freeway standards and the traffic lights are extinguished.
So the slowdown problem should be fixed by now, but check in if it’s still an issue.
Questions and comments should be sent to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com. Please include your phone number. Find the Road Warrior on Twitter: @RJroadwarrior.
