Las Vegas roadgeeking advice

[CL]

I'll be down in Las Vegas over the weekend. I've set aside one day for purely driving around town (the Strip is just not my thing...). However, I have no idea what's worth seeing. Besides freeways, I want to see the more pleasant areas of town. Summerlin was already on my agenda. Those familiar with Las Vegas–what do you suggest? I'd totally welcome something like this Google Maps link that basically has turn-by-turn directions of where to go.

[kurumi]

Hoover Dam, and the US 93 bridge over the Colorado River. (The sidewalk has a better view than the freeway itself; and the best view of the bridge is from below.)

Red Rock Canyon, 20 miles west. Great hiking and wildlife.

[andy3175]

December is a great time of year to explore the scenic areas around Las Vegas since it is not terribly hot.

If you like desert scenery, two areas worth considering are Red Rock Canyon/Calico Basin (located west of Las Vegas via a loop of Nevada 160 and Nevada 159) and Valley of Fire (a bit further away, but you can make it a loop via I-15 north, Valley of Fire Highway southeast, and Northshore Road south back to Lake Las Vegas to parallel Lake Mead). Mt. Charleston might be nice (via US 95 north to Nevada 156 west) but the cold weather could bring wintery conditions and road closures. Check in advance before heading that way.

If you want to see engineering marvels, then go to Boulder City/Hoover Dam. Take US 93 south to Nevada 172 (last exit in Nevada). After passing through security on Nevada 172, be sure to park at the first lot so you can walk onto the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge (Mike O'Callaghan—Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge). Then you can drive downhill on Old US 93 to the dam itself and arrange for a tour.

If you like heights, you can go to the Stratosphere downtown to see all around the area (there's a fee to ride up to the top). You can see quite a bit from there, including most of the developed valley.

If you like to look for evidence in the field of some of the unsigned Nevada state highways (usually those routes listed as Nevada 5xx or 6xx in Las Vegas), then you should print out the latest NDOT route guide (see http://www.nevadadot.com/Content.aspx?id=244&terms=STATE%20MAINTAINED%20HIGHWAYS%20DESCRIPTIONS%20AND%20MAPS) for Clark County that shows the current Nevada state highway system, then locate the beginnings/ends of the various state routes. NDOT is pretty good about signing the beginnings/ends of its state routes, and it's neat to see evidence of this in the field (at least I enjoy tracking those signs down ... and it's even more fun in Reno, where finding evidence can be a bit more difficult since the only evidence might be the white mile markers NDOT places on its state routes).

Of course, driving around town is fun (except during rush hours), especially on the new I-15 express lanes through the Strip and on the completed sections of Las Vegas Beltway. U.S. 95 was expanded west of downtown and also south of Boulder City (in case you're headed to Searchlight or Laughlin). So there's plenty of that to see. There is an old US 91-466 sign that was repurposed as a "downtown" guide sign; it's located on Las Vegas Boulevard somewhere near Stratosphere. The remains of the 91 and 466 shields are still visible years after the button copy was scraped off the sign. You'd have to see this on foot to be able to see the old routes.

There's plenty more to see and do ... but that can get you started!

Regards,
Andy

[roadfro]

Andy covered a lot of what there is in the roadgeek realm and with natural landscapes near the Las Vegas Valley.


If you want to other more "nicer" parts of town, I would suggest driving around the Green Valley and Anthem areas of Henderson, and the Aliante region of North Las Vegas. The Water Street district in "downtown" Henderson is also kinda nice. Driving the entirety of the I-215/CR 215 Las Vegas Beltway will hit on a lot of the "nicer" and newer areas of development in the valley.

If you do take a trip to Hoover Dam, you might also take a bit of time to explore driving around Boulder City, which is pretty nice. The old US 93 is along Nevada Way, which is now a nice business district.

If you've got a National Park pass or don't mind the fee, driving around Lake Mead might be interesting to see as well.


I do have to say that driving the Strip at night, although always busy, is a really cool drive (it is the only *nighttime* scenic byway in the U.S.). If you've never done that, you should. Also, checking out the Fremont Street district downtown is neat too.

[rschen7754]

I-15 Arizona would be a good drive if you're headed that way too.

[corco]

I drove CC 215 a couple days ago, that's kind of worth looking at to see the beltway construction. I probably wouldn't go too far out of my way to do it, but if you're swinging that way anyway it's worth working in.

[myosh_tino]

I drove CC 215 a couple days ago, that's kind of worth looking at to see the beltway construction. I probably wouldn't go too far out of my way to do it, but if you're swinging that way anyway it's worth working in.

I drove the entire CC 215 last year from near the airport to I-15 in north Las Vegas.  The ongoing construction was pretty interesting but I was surprised at how sparsely populated the northwest quadrant of Las Vegas is.

[corco]

That area actually seemed nice- I've been to Vegas and done the strip thing, and then I've done 93 through town a couple times where you're going through the touristy parts, industrial stuff, and Nellis, but I'd never been up that way. The northwest quadrant is actually pretty scenic and seems really liveable.

[roadfro]

I drove CC 215 a couple days ago, that's kind of worth looking at to see the beltway construction. I probably wouldn't go too far out of my way to do it, but if you're swinging that way anyway it's worth working in.

I drove the entire CC 215 last year from near the airport to I-15 in north Las Vegas.  The ongoing construction was pretty interesting but I was surprised at how sparsely populated the northwest quadrant of Las Vegas is.

The northwest part of Las Vegas was the fastest growing area of the valley during the late 1980s and the 1990s, and was still growing fast in the early 2000s. I assure you the northwest section of the Las Vegas Valley is far from sparsely populated--it's more of what you can see from the beltway that gives that impression.

Historically, much of the northwest was large tracts of land owned as ranches before the big housing booms came along--they came along to escape the glitz and glamor of the city (which at the time was nowhere near as large). So there's still a lot of large lots out in the northwest, but these are increasingly turned into housing developments (or the developments just build around them).

However, what's more apparent is that the northwestern beltway itself gets very close to the foothills of the surrounding mountains. (Incidentally, for me having grown up in northwest Las Vegas, a major sign of Las Vegas' growth is that 215 actually runs behind Lone Mountain...development was very far from reaching this when I was young.) The short segment of non-freeway beltway in the northwest borders on an open pit quarry and a lot of still undeveloped land, much of which is likely still owned by the BLM.

[mgk920]

From a planning and development perspective, I'd also want to check out the 'stopped in their tracks' developments where the development frontier was when the housing bubble burst a few years ago, if I was to spend some time exploring that area.

Mike

[brad2971]

From a planning and development perspective, I'd also want to check out the 'stopped in their tracks' developments where the development frontier was when the housing bubble burst a few years ago, if I was to spend some time exploring that area.

Mike

Better go within the next couple of years, as the housing market is starting to pick up again. Keep in mind that the outward development of the Las Vegas Valley is governed by how much land the BLM is willing to sell to developers. Those empty lots are starting to go quickly.

Other than that, I would definitely want to see how quickly the northern part of the Beltway (from US95 to I-15 north) gets converted.

[roadfro]

From a planning and development perspective, I'd also want to check out the 'stopped in their tracks' developments where the development frontier was when the housing bubble burst a few years ago, if I was to spend some time exploring that area.

Better go within the next couple of years, as the housing market is starting to pick up again. Keep in mind that the outward development of the Las Vegas Valley is governed by how much land the BLM is willing to sell to developers. Those empty lots are starting to go quickly.

The housing bubble burst affected many areas of town, it's not just a concentrated zone. There's not that many "stopped in their tracks" developments...the market in Vegas was more affected by there being a lot of people that were upside down in their mortgages and not able to afford house payments. The burst bubble is likely more evident by the amount of "for sale" signs that show up in those newer neighborhoods.

Other than that, I would definitely want to see how quickly the northern part of the Beltway (from US95 to I-15 north) gets converted.

There's another stretch of the northern beltway being converted right now, from US 95 east to Decatur Blvd (where it will tie into recent upgrades at Aliante Pkwy & N. 5th St).

According to the last planning map I saw, the final part of the beltway scheduled to be converted to freeway is actually along the northwest portion between existing freeway segments from Cheyenne Ave to Hualapai Way. (Well, the US 95 interchange is dead last as far as Clark County is concerned, but NDOT will be helping to fund that as part of a future phase of US 95 northwest improvements.)

[CL]

Thanks for the help, folks. I was thoroughly impressed with the new construction that has wrapped up and that's going on. One of the first places I happened to drive was CC 215 between I-15 in North Las Vegas and US-95. It was fascinating to see the scope and breadth of freeway construction in that area. US-95 south of CC 215 also was impressive; was that stretch of freeway recently reconstructed? The SR-159/160 loop to Red Rock Canyon was a beauty, and I found myself marveling how quickly I'd gone from being surrounded by homes to being surrounded by nothing. Glad to see the US-93 widening project between Boulder City and SR-172 was finished–I remember being stuck in quite the traffic jam two years ago on that stretch.

In terms of neighborhoods, I drove around Summerlin and the southern part of Henderson around Green Valley Parkway and Paseo Verde Parkway. Beautiful areas of the city. While in Summerlin I drove to the western end of Far Hills Avenue where development stops abruptly, where I got a wickedly good view of the city. Elsewhere in the city, the mountains to the west were downright majestic to look at. Salt Lake and Vegas have a lot more in common than I thought.

It seems that Las Vegas places a lot of stock in its road infrastructure. Street lighting is abundant, roadways are pretty darn wide, and I not once found myself driving down a road that had poor pavement. I suppose that's the result of having such a huge gambling industry in your state. Speed limits were also much higher than what I'm used to, with 45 mph being the norm. I'm not a huge fan of signing practices in Nevada. The layout on signs seems inconsistent, shields varied between neutered and non-neutered, the CC 215 shields were plain ugly, and I like the tubular gantries used for overhead signage in Arizona and Utah much more than what Nevada utilizes. I could tell from the brief twenty-nine miles I spent in Arizona that they're much better when it comes to good quality signage.

Ah, also this: I'm 99.9 percent positive there is an erroneous CC 215 shield posted on westbound I-215 between Eastern and McCarran Airport.

[corco]

Ah, also this: I'm 99.9 percent positive there is an erroneous CC 215 shield posted on westbound I-215 between Eastern and McCarran Airport.

Yes! It's hanging from a post sort of overhanging the freeway, right? I have a picture on an SD card from last weekend- I'll post it later.

[roadfro]

One of the first places I happened to drive was CC 215 between I-15 in North Las Vegas and US-95. It was fascinating to see the scope and breadth of freeway construction in that area.

Yes, the northern leg of the beltway has seen the most upgrade activity as of late, with two fairly-recently completed projects and another in progress.

US-95 south of CC 215 also was impressive; was that stretch of freeway recently reconstructed?

NDOT just wrapped up on a widening & improvement project on US 95 from CC-215 south to the Rainbow Curve (exit 81/Rainbow Blvd & Summerlin Pkwy) within the last few weeks. This project extended the HOV lane north to Ann Rd, added a northbound lane from Rainbow Blvd to Cheyenne, added auxiliary lanes between interchanges north of Cheyenne Ave (exit 83), added a west-to-south loop on-ramp at Cheyenne Ave, braided ramps at the Rancho Dr/Ann Road interchange, minor repaving, and added/upgraded landscaping and aesthetics throughout.

The SR-159/160 loop to Red Rock Canyon was a beauty, and I found myself marveling how quickly I'd gone from being surrounded by homes to being surrounded by nothing.

Yeah, that is a nice scenic drive--it's one of the Nevada Scenic Byways, actually. It's still very interesting that you go from middle of city to middle of nowhere in such a short time.

That loop is actually becoming a very popular bicycling circuit. NDOT has been doing some studies on SR 159 to see what improvements they can do to make the route more amenable to cars and bikes.

It seems that Las Vegas places a lot of stock in its road infrastructure. Street lighting is abundant, roadways are pretty darn wide, and I not once found myself driving down a road that had poor pavement. I suppose that's the result of having such a huge gambling industry in your state. Speed limits were also much higher than what I'm used to, with 45 mph being the norm.

Speed limits on arterial roadways are typically 45mph, especially the relatively straight section-line arterials that are 3 or more lanes wide each direction. Otherwise, arterials and major collector roads are about 35mph.

Gambling doesn't pay that much into road infrastructure...more of their taxes goes straight to the state general fund.  Clark County voters passed the Question 10 measure in 1990 (subsequently extended with a later vote by the public) that enacted a bunch of taxes & fees to fund transportation infrastructure projects over and above the typical gas tax funding. There's increased gas taxes, taxes/fees on new developments, property taxes, and some Strip hotel room taxes (these specifically fund road improvements in the resort corridor). Much of the beltway was constructed from Question 10 funding. Nevada and Clark County also used a lot of ARRA stimulus funding to do repaving projects on arterial streets.

I'm not a huge fan of signing practices in Nevada. The layout on signs seems inconsistent, shields varied between neutered and non-neutered, the CC 215 shields were plain ugly, and I like the tubular gantries used for overhead signage in Arizona and Utah much more than what Nevada utilizes. I could tell from the brief twenty-nine miles I spent in Arizona that they're much better when it comes to good quality signage.

There has been some inconsistency with signing, but it has gotten much better in recent years. In some ways, NDOT has been extremely consistent over the years, but in other ways has lacked.

I think NDOT is now specifying non-neutered Interstate shields, but the standard had been neutered for many years (after having previously had state names).

Clark County designed the 215 shields, which is basically a modification of the county logo slapped into a pentagon. The oldest CC 215 shields were a lighter blue and used equilateral pentagons and a non-standard highway font for the 215 numbers, which made for very ugly signs. Newer shields use the typical pentagon shape, but unfortunately keep the logo intact.

NDOT has for a long time typically specified all overhead BGS assemblies to be a standard height, to go with the standard truss bridge that has been used for mounting overhead signs. As far as I'm aware, this is still the case for most signs in Las Vegas. However, NDOT has recently used monotube poles on the I-80 project in Reno (where widespread non-lit overhead signs were first deployed and full-size arrow-per-lane signs were also first used)--these look pretty nice in an overall corridor sign replacement, but I'm not sure if that is a trial thing for Reno or if NDOT is going to start using tubular signs structures elsewhere...

Ah, also this: I'm 99.9 percent positive there is an erroneous CC 215 shield posted on westbound I-215 between Eastern and McCarran Airport.

Yes! It's hanging from a post sort of overhanging the freeway, right? I have a picture on an SD card from last weekend- I'll post it later.

I remember seeing this when I was down in Vegas last month. I thought it was eastbound, but could be mistaken. Anyway, it is an error posted by the county...it is along the stretch of beltway that is recognized as I-215 but is still technically maintained by Clark County (not NDOT).

[corco]

The picture didn't come out too well but yeah.

There's also this curiosity right before Las Vegas Blvd on I-215 west

[agentsteel53]

here's the button copy sign near the Stratosphere.  it's on the strip northbound, in the median.  a tough thing to spot at the 20-30 mph speed of the strip, because it is partly obscured by trees.

as far as I know, it is the only button copy sign in Nevada.

the front side says "Downtown" with an arrow - this is the back side with the demounted shields.



Andy says that this sign is repurposed, but I believe it once was in use as a two-sided sign, and the reason for the modification was the decommissioning of the routes in question.

[myosh_tino]

According to the last planning map I saw, the final part of the beltway scheduled to be converted to freeway is actually along the northwest portion between existing freeway segments from Cheyenne Ave to Hualapai Way. (Well, the US 95 interchange is dead last as far as Clark County is concerned, but NDOT will be helping to fund that as part of a future phase of US 95 northwest improvements.)

What about the extreme northeast portion of the beltway at Losee Rd, Pecos Rd and Lamb Blvd? When I drove the beltway a couple of years ago it looked like interchanges were planned at these cross streets.  Also do you know if the northern I-15 connection to CC-215 will be improved to a full interchange?  Currently there is an uncontrolled intersection that handles movements to and from northbound I-15.

[roadfro]

The picture didn't come out too well but yeah.

So it was westbound... given the curve of the roadway, I'd say it's just after the Eastern Ave interchange, before Windmill Pkwy.

There's also this curiosity right before Las Vegas Blvd on I-215 west

There were a few I-215 shields for original segment of the beltway (from I-15 east to Warm Springs Rd) made in this curious design, i.e. 2di sizing with "loop" as the state name. A couple even ended up on overhead BGS signs along I-15, and there may have been some at Las Vegas Blvd. Most have been replaced and/or covered up with subsequent projects--the one in that picture might be the only one left.

According to the last planning map I saw, the final part of the beltway scheduled to be converted to freeway is actually along the northwest portion between existing freeway segments from Cheyenne Ave to Hualapai Way. (Well, the US 95 interchange is dead last as far as Clark County is concerned, but NDOT will be helping to fund that as part of a future phase of US 95 northwest improvements.)

What about the extreme northeast portion of the beltway at Losee Rd, Pecos Rd and Lamb Blvd? When I drove the beltway a couple of years ago it looked like interchanges were planned at these cross streets.  Also do you know if the northern I-15 connection to CC-215 will be improved to a full interchange?  Currently there is an uncontrolled intersection that handles movements to and from northbound I-15.

All of those intersections are planned to become interchanges at some point. Development in that part of North Las Vegas hasn't quite caught up to the beltway alignment yet, so these are just split intersections for now (when originally constructed, each of these was just a turnaround because the roads themselves hadn't made it out there yet.

The northern I-15 interchange will eventually be improved to a system interchange. I believe that was studied as a later phase of the I-15 north improvements. A proposed sketch I saw indicated a "Y" interchange, with the existing bridge serving to allow access to the Range Road intersection and an extended Tropical Pkwy on the east side of I-15.

[CL]

Another thing I forgot to mention (but something I've mentioned on this forum before) is that I approve of Nevada's excellent practices with its traffic signal installations. Always an accompanying streetlight and backlit sign of the street name (there was a much more eloquent way of saying that, I know.) Case in point:


Red Light Runner by Roadsidepictures, on Flickr


Summerlin by Terry Hassan, on Flickr

Perfect. Exactly how it should be done.

And then Utah:


westbound SR-201 at 8000 West by CountyLemonade, on Flickr

Hip hip... boo.

[roadfro]

Another thing I forgot to mention (but something I've mentioned on this forum before) is that I approve of Nevada's excellent practices with its traffic signal installations. Always an accompanying streetlight and backlit sign of the street name (there was a much more eloquent way of saying that, I know.)

Well, usually but not always...

* North Las Vegas does not use internally-lit street name signs, but will use large static street name signs mounted to the mast arm.
* Older signals around Reno/Sparks, Carson City and in other northern Nevada/rural locales do not always have internally-lit street name signs (or street name signs at all), or sometimes only have them only one of two mast arms for a cross street. New signals in these areas always have them though.
* A street light is almost always a given, unless overhead utility lines or structures interfere with standard height or short height street light arms.

[swbrotha100]

So are the newer traffic signals in Nevada based on NDOT installations, where the individual jurisdictions have their own signage? I'm wondering if it's similar to Arizona, where there is the typical ADOT signal seen along interstate, US and state routes. Most of the jurisdictions in AZ use a version of the ADOT signal, with differences in signage. A few use completely different types of signals altogether.

I'm also a fan of the signals Nevada uses. From when I've visited the Las Vegas valley or Laughlin, most of the differences in signal installations are minor at best.

[roadfro]

Each agency pretty much designs traffic signals the same way nowadays (btw: that's true for Las Vegas area and the rest of the state). The signal hardware and head placement is fairly standard on new installations, just the street name signage varies--North Las Vegas not using internally lit signs, Henderson mounting the sign above the mast, etc.

NDOT does have signal installation guidelines. I believe (but don't know for sure) that many agencies around the state use similar hardware and guidelines for uniformity and to make sure their hardware is compatible for connectivity/coordination concerns.

An interesting note: NDOT will install signals on state highway ROW, but does not operate or maintain any signals (except for maybe maintenance on ramp meters in Las Vegas, but operation is left to the RTC). Operation and maintenance of signals on state ROW is left to the city or county.

[Mdcastle]

I'll second the boo to Utah, I'm used to not having lights on signs, but they're missing the signal face on the vertical post on either side of the intersection. How are you supposed to see if there's a truck ahead of you?

[OCGuy81]

Wow, strange seeing Loop on those 215 shields.  I never realized they had that.  Odd, as I-215 itself isn't a complete loop, is it? 

Do any other 3-dis use Loop?  610 and 410 in Texas, perhaps?  495 in DC?