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Relieving Congestion in Nevada 
In 1989, The Louis Berger Group (Berger) was selected by Clark County, Nevada, to conduct the location studies and prepare an environmental impact statement for the first 20 miles of the Las Vegas Beltway. Fueled by unprecedented growth--Nevada is the fastest growing state in the nation--Las Vegas, boasts 101,000 hotel rooms with an additional 30,000 rooms under construction and a population that has doubled to over one million in less than 10 years. The demand for infrastructure, especially surface transportation, has grown at an equal pace. Working on a fast-track schedule, Berger developed the preliminary plans and environmental impact statement for the proposed $557 million freeway, designed the first beltway section and bid the first construction contract--all within 36 months. Following that assignment, Berger was selected as program manager and principal design consultant for the design of the southern segment of the Beltway. The southern segment provides direct freeway access to McCarran International Airport, the ninth largest airport in the country and a high-speed, limited-access facility serving the burgeoning residential areas of the southern part of the valley. The $52 million Airport Connector was opened to traffic in January 1995. The Connector, a two-mile, eight-lane depressed freeway, includes four interchanges, a fully directional system interchange at I-15, a high speed directional interchange serving the airport and service interchanges at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sunset Road. Constructed through residential areas, the 20-mile southern segment includes continuous cast-in-place concrete noise barriers, single-point urban as well as conventional diamond interchanges and extensive use of cast-in-place post-tensioned box girder bridges. To date, construction contracts totaling over $200 million have been let at a total construction cost $35 million under budget. The Clark County Department of Public Works selected The Louis Berger Group to provide planning, design and comprehensive construction administration for the Desert Inn Super Arterial Project. The project consisted of a six-lane, two-mile limited access arterial through the heart of the Las Vegas Resort Corridor between Valley View Boulevard and Paradise Road. The Super Arterial ascends from ground level at Valley View Boulevard and is elevated over I-15, Rancho Drive, Highland Drive and the Union Pacific Railroad before descending under Las Vegas Boulevard, the "Las Vegas Strip," in a tunnel surfacing at Paradise Road. The Berger Team designed the Super Arterial to transport 70,000 vehicles a day. The $82 million project began in December, 1993, and opened on-time and on-budget on March 20, 1996. The Super Arterial serves as a congestion reliever by attracting traffic away from other heavily traveled east-west streets like Sahara Avenue, Spring Mountain Road and Flamingo Road. For the project, Berger experts designed several cast-in-place and pre-cast post-tensioned concrete bridge and tunnel structures and extensive retaining walls as well as a pump station; signaling, striping and tunnel lighting; and a state-of-the-art Intelligent Transportation System. The heavily traveled "Las Vegas Strip" was detoured for less than six months to allow construction of the center tunnel section. The Super Arterial was awarded both the 1997 American Public Works Association Major Project of the Year in Nevada and 1996 Institute of Transportation Engineers Intermountain Region Project of the Year awards. |
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