Las Vegas- Studying, widening and improving crash-prone and traffic-choked state Route 160 will be a top priority for Clark County and state planners in the coming years, authorities said this week.
Those goals were reiterated at a Tuesday meeting between various Southern Nevada elected officials, transportation agencies and private developers who shared concerns about a spate of deadly wrecks on Route 160, also known as Blue Diamond Road. At least 17 people have died in auto wrecks since July 1 on Route 160 between Las Vegas and Pahrump in Nye County. The latest traffic death on the road occurred Wednesday, when a 37-year-old woman suffered fatal injuries in a crash on Route 160 just west of Rainbow Boulevard around 11:44 a.m.
The woman, whose name had not been released Wednesday night, was a passenger in a westbound Dodge Stratus that appeared to be attempting a U-turn when it entered the eastbound traffic lane and was broadsided by a pickup. The car's driver survived, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.
It was just the latest example of how the mostly two-lane desert road has gotten more deadly as it has seen a surge in overall traffic because of the burgeoning residential development of the southwestern Las Vegas Valley. Police have called the narrow road unforgiving to careless or distracted drivers.
The meeting offered few new initiatives, time lines or guarantees for improvement projects. But representatives of agencies that attended the get-together said there was value in discussing a common concern and coordinating planning efforts.
"State Route 160, we've been talking about for a while," Bob McKenzie, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, said Wednesday. "We think the meeting was important in that it brought all the parties together to make sure we're on the same sheet of music and so Las Vegas knows it's a primary concern, with all the growth in the southwest."
Among those developments is Mountain's Edge, a master-planned community where The Focus Group is building several thousand homes along Route 160 at Buffalo Drive. That development has been a major catalyst of traffic growth in that area, officials have said.
"It's really important that all the parties involved step up to the plate to ensure that our infrastructure matches the realities of the developments that have been approved, and those coming down the pipeline," Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who called for the meeting, said in a prepared statement.
At Tuesday's meeting, various local and state officials agreed to make Route 160 improvements a priority, second only to Las Vegas Beltway work, when it comes to seeking federal aid to underwrite construction work.
Also, state highway officials said a safety audit of Route 160 was under way and would be complete within two weeks. It is hoped that the study will give engineers ideas on what the highway's particular dangers are, and what specific improvements would be effective.
And authorities seconded plans by the highway patrol and Las Vegas police to step up traffic enforcement along Route 160. Many of the recent wrecks have resulted from failures to stop at stop signs, speeding and failures to maintain travel lanes.
Officials from both police agencies have recently said increased patrols along Route 160 will likely begin in the coming weeks.
"We need stricter enforcement of our traffic laws, which are being systematically ignored by a large number of drivers who create unsafe conditions for all of us," state Sen. Dennis Nolan, who chairs the Senate's transportation committee, said in a prepared statement.
Currently, work is under way to widen Route 160 from two to eight lanes between Interstate 15 and Rainbow. A segment between I-15 and Decatur Boulevard should be widened by the end of this year, while the Decatur-to-Rainbow stretch won't be finished until early 2008.
But Boggs McDonald said the section of Route 160 where the need for widening is most pressing is between Rainbow and state Route 159, near Red Rock National Conservation Area.
Meanwhile, The Focus Group, which was represented at Tuesday's meeting, already is talking to state and county officials about widening Route 160 to six lanes between Rainbow and Durango Drive sometime in the near future.
Also, county officials later this year plan to have stoplights replace stop signs at Route 160 and Durango, the site of a fatal car wreck last month. Another crash-prone Route 160 crossing at Decatur Boulevard was fitted with stoplights last year.
Planners are also expediting plans to create new links between Route 160 and the Beltway. The Beltway is seen as an alternate for southwest valley commuters who currently can use only Route 160 to access I-15, the valley's major north-south freeway.
Between Route 160 and the Beltway, engineers hope to widen Durango from two to four lanes by mid-year; extend Buffalo before year's end; and widen Rainbow from two to four lanes by the end of this year.
Also, the Regional Transportation Commission plans to analyze the potential need for a high-speed freeway link between Route 160 and the Beltway.
