Interstate 11 alignment, though Vegas and points north

[silverback1065]

that honestly may be why US 95 doesn't make it to Reno and instead goes east.

[Max Rockatansky]

Probably has more to do with US 395 being extended through Nevada several years prior to US 95.  US 95 being extended was delayed largely by how poor conditions on the ION Highway in Oregon were.

[kkt]

I-11 makes sense from 80 in Reno to 10 in Phoenix. no need for it elsewhere.

I put it farther south at both ends:  from Las Vegas (or Indian Springs) to I-8 at Gila Bend.

Geography generally gets the last word unless you have particularly huge needs and a particularly huge budget.  Interstate from Las Vegas to Reno has neither.

[cl94]

Furthermore, if you make some weird jog to Carson, I would bet that a decent amount of traffic cuts the corner up to I-80. Short of some very expensive engineering to tunnel under the Wassuk Range west of Hawthorne, any reasonable route to Carson would involve a pretty big detour from a reasonable Reno-Vegas routing.

There's a reason why Carson City wasn't on the I-system until the 2010s and terrain is a large part of it. The city is in a valley with rugged mountains surrounding it, and these mountains have a ton of seismic activity. The only realistic route east is that used by US 50, which runs NE from Carson.

[Bobby5280]

Forget about the rest of Nevada for a minute, and just look at Indian Springs (in Clark County!). Due to presence of both Creech AFB and the mountains close by to the south, Indian Springs has hard-and-fast development limits. It's quite doubtful they can ever justify two exits. However, NDOT can design an exit to the immediate east of town that can serve both the town and Creech AFB while providing the Air Force a more standardized base entrance than what it has right now. And all this can be done within current US 95 right-of-way.

There is enough space within the current US-95 ROW for them to build an exit with slip ramps in front of the main gate of Creech AFB.

[Plutonic Panda]

It'd absolutely hilarious how so many are getting worked up here about building a road in a road discussion forum.

Not everyone in this forum is gung ho about road construction for various reasons (people who are against the impacts of eminent domain/relocation, some mass transit advocates, etc.).   

Others just think that this project might not be as important as others they are more interested in or want to see more funding for.  But that's also the reality of having 50 states with competing interests and different approaches to their highway networks too.

I bring up California's situations a lot on this forum not because I fully like or dislike everything out here, but more to be realistic about what can and can't happen in this current age.  Nevada is different (look at how they already planned for things going north of Summerlin and thereabouts), but planning is always going to be different from whether lines on a map have the funding to turn into real routes.

The only reason I'm against I-11 north of Las Vegas is because it isn't needed nor will ever be. The idea is FritzOwlian at best.

A lot of people would do themselves a favor to dig into the three main proposals to drag I-70 across Nevada during the 1960s qnd early 1970s.  All of those had that the same "build it and they will come" mindset that has taken over all talk/scoping on I-11.

Also, why do some of the posters on this forum seem to think all of us want nothing but freeways and Interstates?  We are literally talking about a part of Nevada that rivals much Alaska for low population density.

Yeah, but Nevada also sits in the middle of pretty populous states where a lot of people are trying to get from one to the other. Can't really say the same about Alaska until the Bering Straight Bridge gets built.

[Bobby5280]

That's kind of a point I was making earlier. The Vancouver, BC metro has 2.6 million people. The Seattle-Tacoma metro is home to over 4 million people. The Portland metro has 2.5 million people. Farther South, the Las Vegas metro has 2.2 million people. The Phoenix metro has 4.8 million people. The I-11 corridor could potentially connect all those metro areas with a high speed, no-stops, limited access highway connection. And it could have one or more gateways into Mexico that are not located in California.

Reno has over 260,000 people and almost 500,000 in its metro area. That's a pretty size-able stop in between. But it's probably not a big enough metro on its own to build a Vegas-Reno Interstate. A bigger, longer distance corridor directly linking Phoenix and Seattle would be more worthwhile.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hence why I keep bringing up how things went down with similar proposals for I-70 in Nevada,  Many of you seem to be fixated on helping out long range traffic and don't care about what is actually going on (or what will go on) in Nevada.  At least I-70 was potentially eligible for chargeable miles, I-11 isn't.

[cl94]

Never mind that people aren't driving the long distances in question. Las Vegas to Reno is 440 miles driving distance. It's another 425 to Eugene. These distances are far enough that normal people will choose to fly instead of drive, especially if they don't need a car on the far end. LAS-RNO is a busy air route (over 10% of RNO's passenger traffic) and I don't see that changing with a new road.

There are also long distances without anything on these routes. We've talked about south of Reno ad infinitum, but north of Reno isn't any less desolate. Head north of Reno on US 395 and the next McDonald's you'll pass is in Burns, Oregon, 350 miles away. That may be the longest distance between 2 McDonald's stores on a major road in the lower 48. Indeed, until the Tonopah McDonald's closed, the "McFurthest Spot" was a little southeast of the CA/NV/OR tripoint. 395 north of CA 36 is bleeping desplate, as are CA 139/ OR 39, and the terrain isn't particularly conducive to building a freeway.

[oscar]

^ Agreed. Also long-haul truckers already have, between Vancouver BC/Seattle/Portland OR and Las Vegas/Phoenix, a mostly-Interstate route over I-5, I-90, I-82, I-84 and/or I-15, plus I-11 south of Las Vegas if that ever gets extended to Phoenix. A new Interstate could shave some mileage and time off the existing-Interstates route, but at what cost?

[kkt]

That's kind of a point I was making earlier. The Vancouver, BC metro has 2.6 million people. The Seattle-Tacoma metro is home to over 4 million people. The Portland metro has 2.5 million people. Farther South, the Las Vegas metro has 2.2 million people. The Phoenix metro has 4.8 million people. The I-11 corridor could potentially connect all those metro areas with a high speed, no-stops, limited access highway connection. And it could have one or more gateways into Mexico that are not located in California.

Reno has over 260,000 people and almost 500,000 in its metro area. That's a pretty size-able stop in between. But it's probably not a big enough metro on its own to build a Vegas-Reno Interstate. A bigger, longer distance corridor directly linking Phoenix and Seattle would be more worthwhile.

Are you talking about people in Seattle or Vancouver who want to go to Las Vegas for a few days?  They'd fly.  Cheap flights, couple of hours.  It's a pretty sizeable drive.  Google Maps says 17 hours - at least 2 days drive, 3 days if you want to enjoy the trip.  Each way.  Just the hotel bills would probably pay for the flight.

Truckers can probably handle driving on some (gasp) US routes in addition to interstates.

[pderocco]

There are also long distances without anything on these routes. We've talked about south of Reno ad infinitum, but north of Reno isn't any less desolate. Head north of Reno on US 395 and the next McDonald's you'll pass is in Burns, Oregon, 350 miles away. That may be the longest distance between 2 McDonald's stores on a major road in the lower 48. Indeed, until the Tonopah McDonald's closed, the "McFurthest Spot" was a little southeast of the CA/NV/OR tripoint. 395 north of CA 36 is bleeping desplate, as are CA 139/ OR 39, and the terrain isn't particularly conducive to building a freeway.

Actually, there's one in Susanville, which is about 300 miles from Burns. Same for Starbucks.

[pderocco]

In Arizona and the same thing with Nevada it's not letting me post pictures directly here, but it starts on slide 19: http://i11study.com/Arizona/PDF/I-11_ASR_December-2017.pdf

I'm glad to see they're considering the remote possibility of a second Interstate between Phoenix and Tucson. I would think the Casa Grande area will expand greatly, and having a freeway down either side could be more useful than one really wide road. Sort of like I-5 and CA-99 in the Central Valley. Or I-20 and I-30 between Fort Worth and Dallas.

[pderocco]

I will say one thing, This is also responding directly to a couple posters that I respect greatly, I am very happy they are not in charge. Because I think there are several highways out on the west that you could say don't deserve to be full interstate quality and that a four-lane at grade Road would suffice. One such obvious road is I-70 in Utah. I am very happy I can travel that road at 80 miles an hour and not have to go through at grade intersections. I think you could say the same thing about some segments of I-10 in western Texas.

That's something we haven't considered. Maybe the reason people want a high speed Interstate highway through hundreds of miles of nothing is that they just want to get the damn ride over with, it's so boring. That's certainly why I rarely get off the Interstate when I'm driving through the middle of the country.

[cl94]

There are also long distances without anything on these routes. We've talked about south of Reno ad infinitum, but north of Reno isn't any less desolate. Head north of Reno on US 395 and the next McDonald's you'll pass is in Burns, Oregon, 350 miles away. That may be the longest distance between 2 McDonald's stores on a major road in the lower 48. Indeed, until the Tonopah McDonald's closed, the "McFurthest Spot" was a little southeast of the CA/NV/OR tripoint. 395 north of CA 36 is bleeping desplate, as are CA 139/ OR 39, and the terrain isn't particularly conducive to building a freeway.

Actually, there's one in Susanville, which is about 300 miles from Burns. Same for Starbucks.

Read my wording again. 395 does not pass the McDonald's in question, which is on CA 36 and about 3 miles from 395.

[pderocco]

There are also long distances without anything on these routes. We've talked about south of Reno ad infinitum, but north of Reno isn't any less desolate. Head north of Reno on US 395 and the next McDonald's you'll pass is in Burns, Oregon, 350 miles away. That may be the longest distance between 2 McDonald's stores on a major road in the lower 48. Indeed, until the Tonopah McDonald's closed, the "McFurthest Spot" was a little southeast of the CA/NV/OR tripoint. 395 north of CA 36 is bleeping desplate, as are CA 139/ OR 39, and the terrain isn't particularly conducive to building a freeway.

Actually, there's one in Susanville, which is about 300 miles from Burns. Same for Starbucks.

Read my wording again. 395 does not pass the McDonald's in question, which is on CA 36 and about 3 miles from 395.

Okay, you got me on a technicality. But if you really want to get technical, I don't see a McDonalds on US-395 south of there until you get to Bishop. There are some a few doors down, though...

[Plutonic Panda]

I will say one thing, This is also responding directly to a couple posters that I respect greatly, I am very happy they are not in charge. Because I think there are several highways out on the west that you could say don't deserve to be full interstate quality and that a four-lane at grade Road would suffice. One such obvious road is I-70 in Utah. I am very happy I can travel that road at 80 miles an hour and not have to go through at grade intersections. I think you could say the same thing about some segments of I-10 in western Texas.

That's something we haven't considered. Maybe the reason people want a high speed Interstate highway through hundreds of miles of nothing is that they just want to get the damn ride over with, it's so boring. That's certainly why I rarely get off the Interstate when I'm driving through the middle of the country.

I can tell you given Utah's practices of signing its two-lane roads at 65 mph, The fact that I drive to Moab once or twice a month, That ride would be absolute hell. I'm so happy that I 70 is an interstate through eastern Utah.

[Bobby5280]

Are you talking about people in Seattle or Vancouver who want to go to Las Vegas for a few days?

No, this has more to do about aiding commercial traffic. I think a NAFTA style corridor that bypasses much of California would be pretty attractive to long haul truckers.

Also, some people are going to prefer driving to flying depending on the leg of I-11 they're using. I think air travel sucks ass these days. And they nickel and dime you to death with all the damned added fees. A completed I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas would likely attract more personal vehicle traffic.

[Max Rockatansky]

I will say one thing, This is also responding directly to a couple posters that I respect greatly, I am very happy they are not in charge. Because I think there are several highways out on the west that you could say don't deserve to be full interstate quality and that a four-lane at grade Road would suffice. One such obvious road is I-70 in Utah. I am very happy I can travel that road at 80 miles an hour and not have to go through at grade intersections. I think you could say the same thing about some segments of I-10 in western Texas.

That's something we haven't considered. Maybe the reason people want a high speed Interstate highway through hundreds of miles of nothing is that they just want to get the damn ride over with, it's so boring. That's certainly why I rarely get off the Interstate when I'm driving through the middle of the country.

I can tell you given Utah's practices of signing its two-lane roads at 65 mph, The fact that I drive to Moab once or twice a month, That ride would be absolute hell. I'm so happy that I 70 is an interstate through eastern Utah.

Wait, you drive to Moab twice a month but stick only to I-15 and I-70?  I'll give you that both have some really top-notch Interstate segments but that's a lot of really top shelf state highway and US Route stuff you're skipping. UT 12 is on a lot of top ten general scenic highway lists.

[JayhawkCO]

Also, why do some of the posters on this forum seem to think all of us want nothing but freeways and Interstates?  We are literally talking about a part of Nevada that rivals much Alaska for low population density.

Then why aren't we bringing I-A1, I-A2, I-A3, and I-A4 up to interstate standards?!?!?!?!?

[Max Rockatansky]

Also, why do some of the posters on this forum seem to think all of us want nothing but freeways and Interstates?  We are literally talking about a part of Nevada that rivals much Alaska for low population density.

Then why aren't we bringing I-A1, I-A2, I-A3, and I-A4 up to interstate standards?!?!?!?!?

I think this is needed. 

[kkt]

Are you talking about people in Seattle or Vancouver who want to go to Las Vegas for a few days?

No, this has more to do about aiding commercial traffic. I think a NAFTA style corridor that bypasses much of California would be pretty attractive to long haul truckers.

Also, some people are going to prefer driving to flying depending on the leg of I-11 they're using. I think air travel sucks ass these days. And they nickel and dime you to death with all the damned added fees. A completed I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas would likely attract more personal vehicle traffic.

I think driving on US 93 would be completely acceptable to long-haul truckers.  It's two lanes, but not crowded at all.  There's no trouble finding a place to pass.

Yes, the added fees on air travel are annoying, but even with them it's still cheaper than a couple of nights in hotels and meals on the road.  Some people love long distance drives, but most don't.

[JayhawkCO]

Also, some people are going to prefer driving to flying depending on the leg of I-11 they're using. I think air travel sucks ass these days. And they nickel and dime you to death with all the damned added fees. A completed I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas would likely attract more personal vehicle traffic.

People complain about paying ancillary fees no matter what the cost of the base ticket is. My mom got pissed she had to pay $60 for checked baggage when she was flying Frontier, thought that was insane. I reminded her that the base price was $39 and so she paid $100 one way for what Delta was going to charge her $179. If you don't have the patience nor ability to do the math, you deserve to pay more and be annoyed.

Also, barely anyone from Vegas goes to Reno, so flying between the two isn't that popular as it is. I would estimate 90% of the traffic between the two cities is freight, which obviously isn't going to fly.

[oscar]

I think driving on US 93 would be completely acceptable to long-haul truckers.  It's two lanes, but not crowded at all.  There's no trouble finding a place to pass.

Indeed, if a Las Vegas/Pacific Northwest trucker wanted to bypass Provo/Salt Lake City/Ogden on I-15, US 93 between Las Vegas and I-84 at Twin Falls ID would probably be the best non-Interstate bypass route.

[cl94]

It takes 16 hours to drive from Portland to Vegas. A freeway won't make that less than 14-15. Flight is 2-3 hours. Most people would take the flight. Unless you're going with a group of people or need a ton of equipment, the flight will be cheaper, especially given that a drive that long involves an overnight somewhere for most people.

People in our hobby are unusually averse to flying compared to the general population. Most people will take whatever is cheapest or fastest. With how cheap flights to Vegas are, most people are going to fly, especially if they don't need a car in Vegas and hotels are going to charge obscene amounts for parking.

Also, some people are going to prefer driving to flying depending on the leg of I-11 they're using. I think air travel sucks ass these days. And they nickel and dime you to death with all the damned added fees. A completed I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas would likely attract more personal vehicle traffic.

People complain about paying ancillary fees no matter what the cost of the base ticket is. My mom got pissed she had to pay $60 for checked baggage when she was flying Frontier, thought that was insane. I reminded her that the base price was $39 and so she paid $100 one way for what Delta was going to charge her $179. If you don't have the patience nor ability to do the math, you deserve to pay more and be annoyed.

Also, barely anyone from Vegas goes to Reno, so flying between the two isn't that popular as it is. I would estimate 90% of the traffic between the two cities is freight, which obviously isn't going to fly.

More than you think. Busiest route out of Reno by far. There is a LOT of air traffic between the two, whether it be business or Tahoe tourism.