Project Neon goes out with a bang

‘Finale’ celebrates conclusion of work to expand I-15, add bridges, HOV lanes

After more than three years of road closures, lane shifts and traffic jams, the $1 billion Project Neon is officially over.

The Nevada Department of Transportation celebrated Thursday with entertainment, refreshments and dignitaries at a “grand finale” event concluding the largest public works project in state history.

While Project Neon was anything but a party for motorists, it created new access points in downtown Las Vegas and added a much-discussed high-occupancy vehicle lane system.

“They (NDOT) said it’s going to be four years of hell,” said U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-nev. “Well, it has been, but it hasn’t been four. It’s only been three, so congratulations for that.”

Project Neon enhanced nearly 4 miles of Interstate 15 between Sahara Avenue and the Spaghetti Bowl. The area is the busiest stretch of highway in Nevada, with 300,000 vehicles daily.

The project saw 63 lane miles of new paving, 29 new bridges and 10 miles of drainage improvements. In addition:

North-south surface street

connections were built to reduce congestion and improve access to downtown Las Vegas, Symphony Park and the medical and arts districts.

Western Avenue now stretches to Charleston Boulevard where it previously hit a dead end.

A new bridge allows motorists to take Industrial Road over the Union Pacific railroad tracks between Charleston and Wyoming Avenue.

Theneongateway,wheremotorists in the HOV lanes can get on and off I-15, was added.

‘Better mobility’

“Project Neon reduces travel delays and creates better mobility in downtown Las Vegas,” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said. “It’s so exciting to have the gateway to downtown Las Vegas that it truly deserves to have. Not only a gateway, but several new interchanges and ramps that will ease congestion and deliver visitors and locals to downtown.”

Martin Luther King Boulevard was upgraded for improved northsouth operations near I-15, with an expandedaltadriveintersection and new signalized connection to Wellness Way in the Las Vegas Medical District. Additionally, the southbound U.S. Highway 95 offramp to Martin Luther King was reconfigured for added lane capacity.

The I-15 southbound offramp to Sahara received more space for westbound travel, and the U.S. 95 southbound offramp to Rancho Drive was reconfigured to add capacity and reduce freeway backups. Forty-two Active Traffic Management freeway signs were installed and are undergoing system integration testing.

The dynamic messaging signs allow for traffic flow control, real-time speed limit changes and more. The signs are still not in service. The signs must run glitch-free for 60 straight days, according to Nevada Department of Transportation spokesman Tony Illia. The system is expected to be fully operational in October, if testing goes as planned.

Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. was the design-build general contractor for the project. All contractual milestones were met or completed ahead of schedule, Illia said.

“We adopted a design-build approach that delivered the project nearly a year earlier than originally anticipated for nearly $80 million in time savings for local taxpayers,” said NDOT Director Kristina Swallow. “This project was a truly collaborative process between stakeholders for improved traffic safety, efficiency and reliability.”

HOV issues

The portion of Project Neon that’s getting the most attention is the 22 miles of HOV lanes created between Silverado Ranch Boulevard on I-15 and Elkhorn Road off U.S. 95. The lanes are connected at the Spaghetti Bowl via an 81-foot-tall, 2,600-footlong HOV flyover bridge.

With the new stretch of HOV lanes came new regulations, including 24/7 policing of the lanes, moving away from the peak hour, Monday-friday regulations that were in place on the U.S. 95 HOV lanes that were opened a decade ago.

In the first month of regulating the lanes, Nevada Highway Patrol troopers wrote 518 carpool lane violation tickets.