Summerlin Parkway getting median cables, but no lane additions for now

For years, Summerlin Parkway was known for out-of-control drivers who strayed into the median, sometimes resulting in fatal cross-traffic collisions.

Las Vegas city officials are trying to fix that by installing a system of heavy, high-tension steel cables that will line both sides of the median. Those cables will create a springlike effect aimed at supporting the weight of vehicles that stray from the expressway between Buffalo Drive and the 215 Beltway.

But Glenn from Summerlin wanted to know whether the new barrier will preclude city officials from widening the parkway, as promised more than a decade ago.

In an email to the Road Warrior, Glenn pointed out that prior to the Great Recession, the city had planned to widen Summerlin Parkway to four lanes in each direction, with three unrestricted travel lanes and a carpool lane.

Expect to possibly wait another decade, Glenn.

Originally, the full build-out of Summerlin Parkway called for three general-purpose traffic lanes in each direction between the Beltway and U.S. Highway 95, with a carpool lane in each direction up to Rampart Boulevard, city spokeswoman Margaret Kurtz said.

If the project is ever completed, most of that widening would wipe out the current open median along most of Summerlin Parkway. As a result, the city would have to build a concrete barrier to separate opposing traffic lanes, similar to what you see on most freeways.

Those improvements have a hefty $100 million price-tag — money that Kurtz said the city doesn’t have right now. Even if the road was widened, the project would be completed in phases as funding became available and “development activity in west Summerlin warranted,” Kurtz said.

“We don’t anticipate a need for the ultimate widening work that would impact the new cable barriers for at least 10 years,” Kurtz said. “More importantly, we have very limited funding currently available for such a project.”

To make things at least a little better, Las Vegas is spending $10 million on several upgrades to the parkway over the next 18 months.

Once work wraps up in December on the cable median barriers, officials will add an auxiliary lane to the westbound parkway, between Rampart and Durango Drive. By next spring, a westbound carpool lane that ends at Buffalo Drive will be extended closer to Durango as a way to ease merging, Kurtz said.

Once that’s completed, Kurtz said auxiliary lanes will be added in three other areas along Summerlin Parkway: between Rampart and Town Center Drive; between the Beltway and Anasazi Drive; and between Rampart and Buffalo.

“We believe it will have a major improvement on the safety and capacity of the entire Summerlin Parkway corridor and bridge the gap during the period that will pass before the ultimate widening work is needed,” Kurtz said.

‘ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN’

Anyone who has tried to get on southbound Interstate 15 from Spring Mountain Road knows this is a pretty odd freeway entrance. Drivers headed west on Spring Mountain must use a double-left turn signal to enter southbound I-15. However, eastbound drivers encounter two yield signs before turning right onto the onramp.

The situation frustrates Regan from Las Vegas, who wanted to know why there isn’t a traffic light for motorists headed in both directions of Spring Mountain.

“I swear this onramp is an accident waiting to happen because of the merging traffic,” Regan wrote in an email.

I’ve used this onramp, too, Regan. It’s pretty messed up.

But Tony Illia from the Nevada Department of Transportation said it would actually be worse if signals were used in both directions of this intersection.

“A right-turn signal would only further back up traffic along Spring Mountain Road, thereby blocking ingress and egress for businesses along the south side of the street,” Illia said, noting that drivers are expected to wait a minute before merging.

NOT A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE

Sheldon wanted to know why a new freeway bridge is under construction along the Beltway, between the exits for Aliante Road and North Fifth Street in North Las Vegas.

“There is no road on either side of the bridge,” Sheldon wrote in an email. “Money would have been better spent to fix the Losee Road interchange.”

No road is there now, Sheldon, but there will be soon. The new interchange under construction will lead to southbound Revere Street, which will be extended to the Beltway, Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin said.

“It is more cost effective to do it now while the area is under construction than have to rebuild the intersection later,” Kulin said.

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