Delayed Las Vegas Expansion Finally Draws To A Close
Seven years and a lawsuit later, transportation officials celebrated on Dec. 17 the completion of a $520-million, 9-mile U.S. Highway 95 widening in northwest Las Vegas.
The project, originally budgeted at $370 million, suffered a one-year setback and 28.8% price increase when the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in 2002. The environmental group cited a study linking exhaust emissions with increased cancer cases. The suit came two years after construction had started and resulted in an injunction from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco on July 28, 2004.