Last week’s news that Arizona had upgraded a portion of the principal driving route between Phoenix and Las Vegas offered a reminder about the necessity to connect the two cities by interstate highway.
With a change in presidential administrations on the way, we’ll once again send a message to Washington, D.C., that this project is among our community’s top infrastructure needs.
Through several administrations, Las Vegas civic leaders have lobbied Washington to fully build out Interstate 11 between the two cities. But currently, only the 23-mile section of the road in Nevada has been completed, leaving a pathwork of two- and four-lane portions on the U.S. and state highways that form the rest of the projected I-11 route to Phoenix.
Meanwhile, although Arizona is making progress to improve the roads, the work is going at an agonizingly slow rate. The upgrade that was announced last week involved only three miles of U.S. Highway 93 north of Wikieup. That project, which widened the road to a four-lane divided highway, took nearly two years to finish and cost $35 million.
To really get things moving, the federal government needs to step in and build the route into a fully fledged I-11.
Doing so would have enormous benefits not only for Las Vegas but the entire Mountain West region: Experts estimate its economic benefit at $24 billion and say it would generate almost a quarter-million jobs.
It’s also critical for safety reasons. Anyone who’s driven the route knows that those two-lane portions can be unpleasant at best and a white-knuckle ride at worst, with cars piling up behind slow-moving vehicles and impatient drivers making risky passes. Traffic volume can be intense as well: Phoenix and Las Vegas are the only American cities with 1 million or more population that have yet to be connected by interstate.
The good news on this front is that President-elect Joe Biden offered an impressive infrastructure plan on the campaign trail, which addresses not only highways but rail, public transportation, bridges and other transportation needs.
But how well Biden will be able to implement that plan is another matter entirely. If Republicans hold onto the Senate, they’re highly likely to obstruct Biden for purely political reasons, to the detriment of Americans’ infrastructure needs.
Still, the changeout in administrations brings fresh opportunities, and Las Vegas’ advocates are sure to keep pressing for the interstate. We offer them our full support.
We’d also strongly encourage them to push for public transportation improvements in the community, especially light rail. One thing is for certain: Biden is far more open than President Donald Trump to light rail projects. The Trump administration was partly responsible for last year’s demise of the proposed Maryland Parkway light rail route, which lost out to a bus rapid transit option after the administration failed to come through with grant funding for a light rail system.
“This is not an administration that’s super supportive of the feds funding rail, and they made it clear to us that you might get 33%, whereas with other rail projects in the past, at one point you’d get 80%,” said Tina Quigley, former CEO of the Regional Transportation Commission, during an interview in December 2019. “Most of the newer systems in the U.S. were built with 80% federal money.
“If we were getting 80% from the feds, I think we could have done it.”
That was a serious blow to the community, where polling showed up to 75% of local residents supported the light rail option. Las Vegans know a good thing when they see one, because the city would benefit greatly from a rail system. The sooner we can establish one and build a connection between McCarran International Airport to the Strip and beyond, the better it will be for the visitor experience that helps us attract tourists and conventiongoers, for Strip workers and other commuters, for the environment, and for development along the rail route.
Meanwhile, the I-11 build-out is also critical for our community’s growth and ongoing vitality. There’s also no better time to get cracking on it, considering that it would create jobs and help Las Vegas and the region recover more quickly from the economic devastation of the pandemic.
We’d urge Biden to battle for it, and we’ll remind Republicans in Congress that the infrastructure needs of Nevadans and all Americans are more important than party politics.