Interstate 11 alignment, though Vegas and points north

[cl94]

NDOT has trouble finding the money to finish I-580

What would finishing I-580 entail?

Interchange at the south end. Due to needing to maintain traffic and work around businesses/parkland, it will not be an easy task. And indeed, when there was an I-11 briefing at the NDOT board meeting a month or two ago, a large percentage of the public commenters noted that 580 still hasn't officially been completed and complained that NDOT was giving any attention to a new freeway if the projects proposed along 395 couldn't get funded.

[pderocco]

Building and maintaining roads costs money. If the feds aren't going to kick in the funds to build it (Interstate-specific funds are dead), the money either needs to be raised through taxes/tolls or come from elsewhere in the budget. If NDOT can get money from the feds earmarked to I-11 that doesn't require cannibalizing funds from elsewhere in the state, they'll build it. It would be horrendous politics to take money away from Vegas or Reno/Carson/Minden/Fernley/Tahoe to build something in the middle of nowhere.

All true, but NDOT is given money by politicians, whether state or federal. I could imagine NDOT wanting to tout the possibility of some grandiose project in order to encourage the politicians to steer more money their way. They may not want to cannibalize the I-580 project to build more of I-11 in the desert, but they might not mind if the money came from some water project, the welfare system, energy subsidies, or whatever. We're only talking about the verbiage in some public-facing document talking about nebulous plans for the future. All bureaucracies want to be bigger and more important.

[Rothman]

Wut.

[JayhawkCO]

There are around 10-12 flights a day via Southwest (Spirit flies the route too but not sure on their frequency) between Reno and Vegas. Yes, even the Reno-bound flights are usually pretty packed.

I'm not saying they aren't. What I am saying is that the majority of the people on that plane are not originating in Vegas, merely connecting.

[hobsini2]

There are around 10-12 flights a day via Southwest (Spirit flies the route too but not sure on their frequency) between Reno and Vegas. Yes, even the Reno-bound flights are usually pretty packed.

I'm not saying they aren't. What I am saying is that the majority of the people on that plane are not originating in Vegas, merely connecting.

Connecting you say? Sure. From places like say Portland and Seattle? Or maybe Phoenix? definitely. Reno-Tahoe Airport got 4.573 million passengers in 2023. But Northwest Nevada and Tahoe is a major draw for tourism even for people who live in Vegas. Not to mention the amount of trade that goes through the region.

[JayhawkCO]

There are around 10-12 flights a day via Southwest (Spirit flies the route too but not sure on their frequency) between Reno and Vegas. Yes, even the Reno-bound flights are usually pretty packed.

I'm not saying they aren't. What I am saying is that the majority of the people on that plane are not originating in Vegas, merely connecting.

Connecting you say? Sure. From places like say Portland and Seattle? Or maybe Phoenix? definitely. Reno-Tahoe Airport got 4.573 million passengers in 2023. But Northwest Nevada and Tahoe is a major draw for tourism even for people who live in Vegas. Not to mention the amount of trade that goes through the region.

Not sure from your tone if you're trying to agree with me or rebut me.

In case you're in disagreement, I'm not saying Reno/Tahoe area isn't "important". I'm saying that not many people travel from Vegas to Reno and vice versa, either by road or by air. Using the amount of flights between Vegas and Reno as a way to disprove my statement doesn't necessarily hold water because Vegas is a focus city for Southwest and lots of people on the LAS-RNO/RNO-LAS flights are connecting, not O/D traffic. And, to summarize to make this more on topic, there isn't much demand for a quicker route between Vegas and Reno, as evident by the already low AADT numbers on US95 and only maybe having 300 people per day flying specifically between the two cities.

[hobsini2]

There are around 10-12 flights a day via Southwest (Spirit flies the route too but not sure on their frequency) between Reno and Vegas. Yes, even the Reno-bound flights are usually pretty packed.

I'm not saying they aren't. What I am saying is that the majority of the people on that plane are not originating in Vegas, merely connecting.

Connecting you say? Sure. From places like say Portland and Seattle? Or maybe Phoenix? definitely. Reno-Tahoe Airport got 4.573 million passengers in 2023. But Northwest Nevada and Tahoe is a major draw for tourism even for people who live in Vegas. Not to mention the amount of trade that goes through the region.

Not sure from your tone if you're trying to agree with me or rebut me.

In case you're in disagreement, I'm not saying Reno/Tahoe area isn't "important". I'm saying that not many people travel from Vegas to Reno and vice versa, either by road or by air. Using the amount of flights between Vegas and Reno as a way to disprove my statement doesn't necessarily hold water because Vegas is a focus city for Southwest and lots of people on the LAS-RNO/RNO-LAS flights are connecting, not O/D traffic. And, to summarize to make this more on topic, there isn't much demand for a quicker route between Vegas and Reno, as evident by the already low AADT numbers on US95 and only maybe having 300 people per day flying specifically between the two cities.

I was in disagreement with your assessment. According to flightradar, there are 83 routes from Reno to Las Vegas per week, most of any city. Second is Denver (50) and 3rd is Phoenix (47).

[gonealookin]

Maybe I-11 to Reno is borne of an interoffice dispute at NDOT.

"God damn it, if you're going to make people from the Las Vegas office come up to Carson for these stupid meetings you should at least let us expense the air travel."
"If you didn't want to drive, George, maybe you shouldn't have gotten a job with NDOT."
"Well maybe if there was an INTERSTATE I wouldn't have PROBLEM with it JEFF"
"WELL MAYBE WE'LL MAKE THERE BE A WHOLE ASS INTERSTATE JUST FOR WHINY BABY GEORGE"
"WELL MAYBE YOU'D BETTER"
"WELL MAYBE I WILL"

As a Northern Nevada resident who knows there will never be any interstate freeway constructed north of Mercury, I have mostly limited my participation in these 1200+ comments worth of hot air to    but it's good for some laughs.

There could possibly stand to be more discussion of the 3di spurs into places like Tonopah and Hawthorne, which would give Wyoming's Interstate 180 some serious competition.

P.S. on the point about air traffic between Reno and Las Vegas, I have flown that route many times but always as a connecting leg of a RNO-LAS-??? trip on Southwest.  If I were going to Vegas specifically to spend my entire time on the Strip I would fly that, but similar to Vegas residents such as Scott5114 I consider the Strip something to avoid completely.  My trips to Vegas are usually for something outlying, such as the October PGA Tour event in Summerlin, and I need my car for that, so I invest the 7 hours or so each way driving down there rather than the close to 3 hours each way it would take to drive from Tahoe to RNO, get parked and get through security at the airport, then the actual flying time to LAS and the transit to the hotel.

Edit to add:  The traffic volume and ability to pass slower vehicles has never been an issue on that drive regardless of specific route chosen.  The minor aggravation that does occur due to lack of a four-lane highway is the times when there is road work, a flagger, and you get stuck in a line behind a vehicle with a "Pilot Car - Follow Me" sign for a 20 or 30 minute delay.

[JayhawkCO]

There are around 10-12 flights a day via Southwest (Spirit flies the route too but not sure on their frequency) between Reno and Vegas. Yes, even the Reno-bound flights are usually pretty packed.

I'm not saying they aren't. What I am saying is that the majority of the people on that plane are not originating in Vegas, merely connecting.

Connecting you say? Sure. From places like say Portland and Seattle? Or maybe Phoenix? definitely. Reno-Tahoe Airport got 4.573 million passengers in 2023. But Northwest Nevada and Tahoe is a major draw for tourism even for people who live in Vegas. Not to mention the amount of trade that goes through the region.

Not sure from your tone if you're trying to agree with me or rebut me.

In case you're in disagreement, I'm not saying Reno/Tahoe area isn't "important". I'm saying that not many people travel from Vegas to Reno and vice versa, either by road or by air. Using the amount of flights between Vegas and Reno as a way to disprove my statement doesn't necessarily hold water because Vegas is a focus city for Southwest and lots of people on the LAS-RNO/RNO-LAS flights are connecting, not O/D traffic. And, to summarize to make this more on topic, there isn't much demand for a quicker route between Vegas and Reno, as evident by the already low AADT numbers on US95 and only maybe having 300 people per day flying specifically between the two cities.

I was in disagreement with your assessment. According to flightradar, there are 83 routes from Reno to Las Vegas per week, most of any city. Second is Denver (50) and 3rd is Phoenix (47).

Not trying to be argumentative, but how does that contradict anything I'm saying? I don't disagree that a good amount of people are on LAS-RNO or RNO-LAS flights. My point of contention is that people are not both originating in a Nevadan city and terminating in a Nevadan city all that often, because those passengers you reference are likely connecting through LAS on Southwest (or Spirit).

So the people who are flying on those flights never would have even considered driving because they're flying something like IAH-LAS-RNO or MDW-LAS-RNO. And, again, to make this relevant to the topic in this thread, upgrading US95 to interstate standards is not really improving conditions for many people, since the AADT is already low and the demand gained from making driving more palatable to flying is also incredibly minimal.

[Plutonic Panda]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

[Max Rockatansky]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

A seven hour drive between the two.

[gonealookin]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

JayhawkCO's analysis is correct.  Reno doesn't have long-haul flights; a couple a day to DFW and Chicago are about it.  Any place east you want to fly to, you're almost always either going to Las Vegas or Denver (occasionally Phoenix) first and connecting to continue on.  Southwest flies to many of the cities in its network nonstop from Vegas, so it's logical to go through there and with all those flights from Reno to Vegas there's usually not more than a 90 minute connection time.

[Plutonic Panda]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

JayhawkCO's analysis is correct.  Reno doesn't have long-haul flights; a couple a day to DFW and Chicago are about it.  Any place east you want to fly to, you're almost always either going to Las Vegas or Denver (occasionally Phoenix) first and connecting to continue on.  Southwest flies to many of the cities in its network nonstop from Vegas, so it's logical to go through there and with all those flights from Reno to Vegas there's usually not more than a 90 minute connection time.

Either way that's still surprising to me. Even with Lake Tahoe, being as big as a tourist destination as it is, If one were to fly to an international airport to get there and not want to drive seven hours from Vegas, there's Sacramento. So I'm just not understanding the demand for all of these flights.

[JayhawkCO]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

A seven hour drive between the two.

Hard disagree. The demand is for people to get to Reno to other cities or vice versa. And since there's not quite enough demand for more non-stops ex-RNO, connecting in Vegas is the most logical spot since Southwest has 50% market share at RNO.

If, instead, United had 50% market share at RNO, there would be a hell of a lot less RNO-LAS flights and a lot more RNO-SFO and RNO-DEN flights, not because there's a lot of demand for Coloradoans or Bay Area folks to fly to Reno, but because those are the hubs where you can connect to myriad other cities.

[Max Rockatansky]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

JayhawkCO's analysis is correct.  Reno doesn't have long-haul flights; a couple a day to DFW and Chicago are about it.  Any place east you want to fly to, you're almost always either going to Las Vegas or Denver (occasionally Phoenix) first and connecting to continue on.  Southwest flies to many of the cities in its network nonstop from Vegas, so it's logical to go through there and with all those flights from Reno to Vegas there's usually not more than a 90 minute connection time.

Either way that's still surprising to me. Even with Lake Tahoe, being as big as a tourist destination as it is, If one were to fly to an international airport to get there and not want to drive seven hours from Vegas, there's Sacramento. So I'm just not understanding the demand for all of these flights.

A good chunk of the year Sacramento isn't exactly super accessible due to chain controls.

[Plutonic Panda]

Well, I'm not trying to make a case to build I-11 based on the amount of flights. I'm just surprised by that number. Reno doesn't seem like the biggest tourist attraction. Tahoe does. And I don't see much news about corporate activity and growth in Reno. If there's that much demand for Tahoe bound tourism why wouldn't Reno capitalize off of that and expand their own airport to handle direct flights?

I understand Carson City being the capitol having something to do with that but still 83 flights is a lot. If there only other connecting flights are to just a couple other cities that is a weird airport where an overwhelmingly majority of people in the airport are all going to the same place even if it's to connect to other flights in Vegas.

I've just never heard of an airport like that before. Now I'm wondering about Palm Springs being a tourist bound destination but obviously it's far from the capitol so not so much a good comparison.

[roadfro]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

JayhawkCO's analysis is correct.  Reno doesn't have long-haul flights; a couple a day to DFW and Chicago are about it.  Any place east you want to fly to, you're almost always either going to Las Vegas or Denver (occasionally Phoenix) first and connecting to continue on.  Southwest flies to many of the cities in its network nonstop from Vegas, so it's logical to go through there and with all those flights from Reno to Vegas there's usually not more than a 90 minute connection time.

Either way that's still surprising to me. Even with Lake Tahoe, being as big as a tourist destination as it is, If one were to fly to an international airport to get there and not want to drive seven hours from Vegas, there's Sacramento. So I'm just not understanding the demand for all of these flights.

As someone who lives in Reno but travels to Las Vegas several times per year, not in a tourist capacity but for family visits and work trips, I can tell you that there is a definite need for direct flights between the two most populous metro areas in a state this large. People conduct in person business between the two cities all the time, college students go back and forth (roughly 30% of the UNR incoming class each year is from Clark County), state officials going to functions and meetings (I've encountered the governor and other state officials on Southwest flights several times)... And at least to me, it seems a significant chunk of people on these flights get off the plane and head straight to baggage claim at either airport.

So I will concede that a significant chunk of RNO tavelers are likely connecting through LAS, but dispute assertions that less than 300 people per day only go from one to the other.

[JayhawkCO]

Even if you make it so 50% of the people are originating and deplaning in Nevada, that's still only about 600 a day in each direction. I still maintain that 50% would be a pretty extreme overestimate.

[roadfro]

Well, I'm not trying to make a case to build I-11 based on the amount of flights. I'm just surprised by that number. Reno doesn't seem like the biggest tourist attraction. Tahoe does. And I don't see much news about corporate activity and growth in Reno. If there's that much demand for Tahoe bound tourism why wouldn't Reno capitalize off of that and expand their own airport to handle direct flights?

I understand Carson City being the capitol having something to do with that but still 83 flights is a lot. If there only other connecting flights are to just a couple other cities that is a weird airport where an overwhelmingly majority of people in the airport are all going to the same place even if it's to connect to other flights in Vegas.

I've just never heard of an airport like that before. Now I'm wondering about Palm Springs being a tourist bound destination but obviously it's far from the capitol so not so much a good comparison.

RNO airport has long range plans to expand capacity at the airport. They're finishing up an expansion of the ticketing hall. Long term, they plan to reconstruct the concourses to add gates and increase operational capacity.

The flights aren't just going to Vegas. RNO has direct flights to many other major surrounding airports (OAK, SFO, San Jose, LAX, DEN, Seattle) as well as other destinations across country.

[roadfro]

Even if you make it so 50% of the people are originating and deplaning in Nevada, that's still only about 600 a day in each direction. I still maintain that 50% would be a pretty extreme overestimate.

Well maybe I'm overestimating how many people fit in a plane?

[roadfro]

A completed I-11 between Phoenix and Las Vegas would likely attract more personal vehicle traffic.

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.

The traffic making the LAS-RNO drive is far from 90% freight... I've made that drive at all times of day and year over the last 20+ years, and maybe the middle of the route has maxed out at more like 20% trucks.

A completed I-11 isn't going to entice more passenger traffic. It's always the tradeoff between driving 7 hours and convenience of flying (airport hassles not withstanding).

For me on persona/family trips, I'll consider driving down to Vegas if I'm going to be there more than a week and having a car with me is going to be necessary while there. Otherwise, it's often not worth losing two days to the drive.

[michravera]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

A seven hour drive between the two.

... and with a decent interstate, it could be 5 hours. Staying on the east side of the Sierras has a certain whether benefit. Sacramento *IS* an option, except during ski season.

[Max Rockatansky]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

A seven hour drive between the two.

... and with a decent interstate, it could be 5 hours. Staying on the east side of the Sierras has a certain whether benefit. Sacramento *IS* an option, except during ski season.

That's the thing, now that USA Parkway exists how much time would be saved?  There is a lot of existing 70 MPH territory along US 95 already.  Most of the slowdowns come in towns I think many would stop for food or a restroom break anyway.

I'm sure getting a better surface bypass for US 95A around Yerington would knock out much of the travel time that a full Interstate would. 

[gonealookin]

That is really hard to believe there's 83 flights a week from Vegas to Reno. How is that sustainable? What is driving that demand?

A seven hour drive between the two.

... and with a decent interstate, it could be 5 hours. Staying on the east side of the Sierras has a certain whether benefit. Sacramento *IS* an option, except during ski season.

That's the thing, now that USA Parkway exists how much time would be saved?  There is a lot of existing 70 MPH territory along US 95 already.  Most of the slowdowns come in towns I think many would stop for food or a restroom break anyway.

I'm sure getting a better surface bypass for US 95A around Yerington would knock out much of the travel time that a full Interstate would. 

Yeah, an Interstate would only save a lot of time if it blasted straight over (under?) mountain ranges and eliminated all the frickin' zigzags any route between Reno and Vegas requires now.

From Tahoe, if I'm taking the mostly US 95 route, it's 95 miles from my house out to Schurz, north of Walker Lake where US 95A meets US 95, and at that point I have made ZERO southbound progress.  Schurz is directly east of me.

In any case there still has to be a big looping route from the Tonopah area down to Indian Springs because of all that fenced-off Air Force territory.

[vdeane]

There could possibly stand to be more discussion of the 3di spurs into places like Tonopah and Hawthorne, which would give Wyoming's Interstate 180 some serious competition.

Why settle for that?  Let's dream big!  I-11 on an elevated viaduct through Tonopah, a beltway around it, and a spur along US 6 from I-11 past the beltway to the airport.  If you're going to do it, do it right!