Resentment brews over Carson City freeway

The Las Vegas Review-Journal turned nasty again this week with a column titled, "Vegas lament: Carson City gets new freeway."

Publisher Sherman Frederick begins sarcastically, "Without the $330 million road, it probably took, what, 10 minutes to get from one end of Carson City to the other?" And continues, "... the opening of the first phase will take 15,000 vehicles a day off Carson Street, the city's quaint main drag.

"Whoopdeedoo! Do you know what 15,000 vehicles compares to by Las Vegas standards?"

The answer: Any given Vegas intersection has about 85,000 cars.

Whoopdeedoo! That's why we don't live in Vegas.

Aside from the weird sibling-rivalry-like whining, it's also misleading.

The entire freeway, running from the base of Spooner Summit to Lakeview Hill, will cost $330 million and should be complete by 2010.

The first phase, from Highway 50 to North Carson Street, cost $120 million - $19 million of which was paid through the city's 5-cent gas tax.

When finished, it will become Interstate 580 connecting Reno to Carson City in Washoe Valley.

And it was right that it opened to much fanfare. Residents had been anticipating that day for a long time.

One woman who ran the 5K as part of the Freeway Fun Run/Walk and bicycle ride, remembered her grandfather always saying that one day a freeway would run through our town.

He died in 1975, but she was there to realize his vision.

That's why we live here.

We choose to live in Carson City because we don't want to spend an eternity waiting for a light to turn green. We want to spend less time in transit, and more time at the destination.

And pinpointing the destination may be the very problem here.

Frederick concludes by saying, "Let's grab our pitchforks and torches and head to the Governor's Mansion. Yeah, and let's save a minute and take the new freeway."

Take the freeway as a shortcut to the Governor's Mansion? If you want to personally petition the governor so badly, perhaps you should find out where he lives.