Cone Zone: Lieutenant governor-elect discusses future of Las Vegas HOV lanes

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) recently announced that they will removeseven of the eleven miles of HOV lanes along I-15 between Spring Mountain and Silverado Ranch in Las Vegas.

According to NDOT, the removal of the HOV lanes is meant to help traffic flows along I-15 near Tropicana due to a massive construction project. As part of the project, NDOT will tear down the existing Tropicana overpass at I-15 and replace it with a bigger, wider overpass.

However, the removal of more than half of the HOV lanes along I-15 will be done at the same time.

Costing nearly $2.7 million, an 18 month HOV study that kicked off Nov. 1 made FOX5′s “Cone Zone” question how can an HOV study be accurate when more than half the HOV lanes are being removed along I-15. According to NDOT spokesperson Justin Hopkins, “we still believe that we’re going to get a robust count from that artificial intelligence machine learning technology that we installed over the summer and from the sensors that were placed before that.”

Th artificial intelligence machine, as NDOT describes, has special infrared surveillance technology to detect how many people are in a vehicle using the HOV lanes. However, the sensors that were installed over the summer along I-15 near Spring Mountain and Blue Diamond Road are now in areas where NDOT just removed the HOV lanes, upsetting lieutenant governor-elect Stavros Anthony.

“They finally decided to do a study of the HOV lanes, the problem is they’re studying them while they are under construction, so they’re not studying the entire HOV system,” said Anthony, who will serve on the Nevada Transportation Board when he takes office.

NDOT responded to the “Cone Zone,” stating that they believe monitoring the four remaining miles of HOV lanes on I-15 along with US 95 should give them an accurate feel of HOV usage even with all the construction happening right now near Flamingo and Tropicana Avenue.

Anthony, however, has his own HOV plans once he gets to Carson City. “But I’m gonna use my position on the Nevada Department of Transportation to revisit decreasing or eliminating HOV lanes,” Anthony says.

According to Anthony, he will be pushing hard for the elimination of HOV lanes throughout the valley out of “fairness.”

“They don’t have them up in Reno and they just have they have as much traffic as we do. Obviously, they have less roadways than we do, but they have congestion up there and why they haven’t put an HOV lane up there, I don’t understand,” Anthony told the “Cone Zone.”

Anthony went on to say that if Reno doesn’t need HOV lanes, then neither does Las Vegas.

“I’ll tell you that I’m speaking for the vast majority of the public when I say those lanes need to be open for all of us to use and this HOV experiment is not working.”

The bottom line? The HOV debate and drama is not going away anytime soon. Though if Anthony has his way, the HOV lanes in Las Vegas will soon be a thing of the past.

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