Gov. Brian Sandoval speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Interstate 11/Boulder City Bypass project near Boulder City on April 6, 2015.
The Nevada Department of Transportation is hosting public information meetings including in western Nevada to discuss the plans for the Interstate 11 corridor between Las Vegas and Reno.
Six meetings are scheduled between March 20 and March 29 including in Carson City, Reno and Fallon.
The schedule provides opportunities for those in rural Nevada to participate as well as those in Reno and Las Vegas.
NDOT Director Rudy Malfabon said the goal is to gather community and stakeholder feedback to help identify specific corridor alternatives for the future interstate.
The first Nevada section of the highway is nearing completion in Boulder City. Generally, he said, the plan is for I-11 to follow U.S. 95 north through the state then onto I-80 in western Nevada. Eventually, the goal is to extend the Interstate all the way from Mexico to the Canadian border.
“The future I-11 will not only further connect our state but the entire West,” he said. “It will bring enhanced mobility, traffic safety, freight and other opportunities for Nevada.”
Malfabon said the meetings will provide the foundation for environmental studies, potential benefits and challenges to the eventual construction of the 450-mile interstate.
NDOT staff will be in Fallon March 27 at the convention center at 100 Campus Way from 4-7 p.m. and at the Hawthorne Convention Center, 932 E Street on March 22.
In addition, a March 28 meeting is set for the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno on March 28. All those meetings are scheduled from 4-7 p.m. with NDOT officials making informal presentations at 5:30 p.m. to outline the goals of the Interstate 11 development project. Other meetings on the list include March 20 in Las Vegas and March 21 in Tonopah.
The final meeting is March 29 from 2-5 p.m. at the NDOT headquarters in Carson City. The informational presentation at that session will be held at 2:30 p.m.
For those unable to attend in person, that meeting will be video-conferenced to Winnemucca at the NDOT District office at 725 W. 4th Street and Elko at the NDOT District Office, 1951 Idaho St.
In addition, the session will be broadcast live on the NDOT Facebook page.
At this point, there’s no money in the federal budget to actually build I-11. In addition, much of the land it would have to cross is federally held and would have to be designated for construction of the four-lane divided highway.
Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation including Rep. Mark Amodei and Sen. Dean Heller have already made initial moves to help get some of the necessary land and funding.