CARSON CITY — Plans by the Nevada Division of Transportation to create a “highway eating regimen” alongside US-50 between Stateline and State Route 28 alongside Tahoe’s east shore have been modified after the Transportation Board’s assembly final week.
Plans for decreasing the 4 lanes to 3 lanes, with center flip lanes and bike lanes to deal with security issues and entry have been a scorching subject. Whereas most have acknowledged they need safer roads, they did not just like the lane discount plans.
The US-50 Tahoe East Shore Hall Administration Plan was mentioned and NDOT says it’s now not contemplating incorporating lane reductions as a part of the efforts.
Nevada Gov. Lombardo mentioned he spoke with Douglas County Sheriff Daniel Coverly and different legislation enforcement to extend patrols alongside US-50 between Stateline and SR28 to scale back speeds.
“I recognize the general public’s participation, it reveals the method is working,” mentioned Lombardo. “Security was the spine of this concept and we’ll do the whole lot inside our authority and skill to regulate the security points with out the highway eating regimen. It makes a distinction persons are being heard.”
The lane discount “highway eating regimen” was going to be part of an illustration challenge that was going to be on a piece of the freeway in 2024 by repaving and re-striping.
A highway eating regimen sometimes entails changing an current four-lane undivided roadway to a three-lane roadway consisting of two by lanes and a middle two-way left-turn lane. Advantages of highway eating regimen installations might embrace a discount of rear-end and left-turn crashes because of the devoted left-turn lane.
There are nonetheless different quick and long-term enhancements being analyzed, such because the aforementioned visitors enforcement, indicators, pace suggestions indicators, new flip lanes, and different choices to boost security and mobility on the hall.
There was a survey of residents carried out from September 1 by October 2, and NDOT acquired 1,938 responses from the over 4,000 mailers despatched out, in addition to hyperlinks shared digitally, emails, and press releases. 70 p.c of the responders lived inside the challenge space, and 80 p.c traveled by it at the least weekly.
The survey outcomes have been evenly distributed with 35 p.c in favor of an illustration interval (which would come with lane reductions), 38 p.c mentioned no, and 27 p.c mentioned possibly. They have been additionally requested, that if the demonstration interval confirmed security advantages, would they be in favor of longer-term options? 32 p.c mentioned sure, 33 p.c mentioned possibly, and 35 p.c mentioned no.
Solely the lane configuration, not the precise width of the highway, would have modified as a part of the short-term check challenge, permitting continued full use of the highway throughout a managed evacuation.
NDOT will proceed to carefully overview and incorporate public and stakeholder suggestions into the planning course of and the ultimate report, which will likely be revealed in 2024. Go right here for extra on the challenge.