Widening plan uses surplus

BYLINE: Ed Vogel

REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY - Gov. Kenny Guinn announced Monday that he is preparing a $7 billion 2007-09 state budget that earmarks $170 million of the state's $486 million budget surplus for widening Interstate 15 in Las Vegas.

To attack traffic congestion in Southern Nevada, Guinn proposes spending $170 million of the state budget surplus on widening Interstate 15 from the Spaghetti Bowl in downtown Las Vegas to Craig Road. The part of I-15 out to Lake Mead Boulevard would be widened to 10 lanes, and the section from Lake Mead to Craig Road would be eight lanes.

State Transportation Director Jeff Fontaine said with legislative approval, his department can put the I-15 widening project out to bid in 2007. Guinn said he hopes contracts will be awarded in March or April.

The surplus state money and a $25 million federal appropriation would be used on the widening project.

Guinn said that he spoke with Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus and that each agreed to his I-15 plan.

Aides to Titus and Gibbons said the candidates have talked with Guinn about transportation needs and consider I-15 an important project, but neither has committed spending a specific amount of money on any project.

Hilarie Grey, spokeswoman for Titus, said that while Titus and Guinn agreed upon the urgency of relieving the traffic congestion on I-15, "they did not speak to a specific amount."

Robert Uithoven, Gibbons' campaign manager, said that Guinn's budget can be changed by whomever is elected governor in today's election.

"I am not saying the governor is wrong," Uithoven said. "That happens to be one of the most needed projects. But Jim is not committed to anything yet."

Guinn, who leaves office Jan. 2, can leave only recommendations for his successor. The Legislature, which goes into session in February, also would have to approve the I-15 construction plan before any money could be spent.

During Monday's meeting of the Transportation Board, Guinn and other members of the board voted to spend a record $393.39 million to complete the Galena Creek Bridge and the adjacent Interstate 580-U.S. Highway 395 freeway between Reno and Carson City. The Washoe Valley project is not expected to be completed until mid-2011 at the earliest, officials said.

"This highway will be the connector for economic development for years to come," said Guinn, chairman of the Transportation Board.

The total cost of the Reno-Carson freeway project will be more than $440 million, $122 million more than the estimate made in 2003.

Guinn said that the cost of the project remains in line with the earlier estimates. Fontaine told the board that the cost of highway construction materials, such as steel, concrete, asphalt and fuel, have risen by 34 percent in the past three years.

The governor said the extra cost was caused not by "incompetence" but by the "inability to stay with inflation."

To keep within budget, the Transportation Department has cut its pavement preservation program in half. In recent years, the state has spent about $130 million annually on fixing pavement. Fontaine said the reduction in pavement funding will remain in place at least through 2009.

Fontaine said preservation work on freeways will continue, but his department might back off from working on Sahara Avenue and Charleston Boulevard in Clark County, Virginia Street in Reno and Winnie Lane in Carson City.

They are state-maintained roads, but Guinn and other Transportation Board members have been seeking to turn them over to local governments.

Transportation Board member Jim Thornton supported moving forward with the record-setting Washoe Valley project but wanted it noted for the record that the decision to build the freeway high in the mountains was "a political decision, not an engineering decision."

"The engineers did not want to locate it there," he said. "The political people and the people did."

Work on the bridge, which is a segment of the freeway, was halted in June when the contractor, Edward Kraemer & Sons, backed out because of fears the structure might collapse in high winds during construction, officials said.

Construction on the $234 million Hoover Dam bypass bridge between Nevada and Arizona stopped Sept. 18 when a 280-foot tall tower crane system was knocked over by high winds. The Hoover Dam bypass bridge is 890 feet above the Colorado River. Work on it resumed a month later.

The state had paid Kraemer $47 million of the $80 million contract awarded to finish the Galena Creek Bridge and three smaller bridges when the company threw in the towel.

Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. won the contract to complete the Galena Creek Bridge and the adjoining freeway. The company has its corporate offices in Dickinson, N.D., according to its Web site.

The company's owner, Tommy Fisher, said he initially wanted to bid $395 million for the Highway 395 project but found some savings and decided on the unusual amount of $393,393,393.

He said his company is a non-union operation that has been working on an earth-moving project in Henderson.