Carson City wants a multi-use path along the freeway. The Federal Highway Administration wants the path. All that stands in the path's way is a $3.5 million decision from the state Board of Transportation.
City supervisors opted Thursday to delay a recommendation about the path and its funding to the Transportation Board for two weeks. They want to use the time to fine-tune their game plan before asking the state to shell out $3.5 million to fund a multi-use path to be built at the base of the Carson City freeway.
Mayor Ray Masayko said after many behind-the-scenes meetings on the issue, he decided the city needs to be "armed with alternatives" before the May 9 state transportation meeting.
"We won't take any position that will hold up the freeway," Masayko said. "The reality of the situation is that the state board meets once a quarter. My impression is that the board will listen attentively and sympathetically but will say, 'Sorry, we don't have the $3.5 million.'"
The Federal Highway Administration is in Carson City's corner. John Price, division administrator, said the administration supports building bike and pedestrian facilities in projects and it supports the Carson City path.
The local mutiny over the path started when the Nevada Department of Transportation announced it planned to drop the path, at that time estimated to cost $7.5 million, from the state plan.
The state each year chooses how to use federal funds and if the path is still on the state plan when it submits the final design for the freeway's Phase 1B, the administration expects the path to be built, Price said.
Price said it was easy for the feds to support the path because they don't make the allocation decisions the state does. But, he said, federal transportation agencies are trying to change the way state agencies view bike and pedestrian paths.
"We're talking about something that is about 30-feet high and 150 wide," Price said of the freeway. "As the FHA, we encourage our highways to be good neighbors. The path would enhance the facility."
Supervisors accepted the recommendation from the Regional Transportation and Parks and Recreation commissions saying the state should fund the path. However, they also pushed city staff to increase their efforts to drop the path's costs. A lower cost could be a better bargaining tool, Supervisor Kay Bennet noted.
Supervisors decided to spend the two weeks before their next meeting clarifying their strategy on approaching the state board. Masayko and Supervisor Jon Plank will lead the presentation and preparation for the May 9 meeting.
Supervisor Robin Williamson, who has also been working behind the scenes on the issue, said she'd heard two messages coming from the state Transportation Board members.
"One is, 'What we give you we can't spend in Clark County and they need it more,'" Williamson said. "The second is, 'You'd be better to get an agreement with staff that we can approve.'"
There is a fear, Williamson said, that if Carson City gets a path, everyone else will want one. That will be one of the considerations for members of the state board, whose members are Gov. Kenny Guinn, Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, State Controller Kathy Augustine, Father Ceasar Caviglia, Thomas Gust and Jim Thornton.
Supervisors hope that an agreement with the state can be worked out before May 9.
Several local groups like Muscle Powered and Gardeners Reclaiming Our Waysides created a home-grown effort starting in 1999 to ensure that the freeway would be landscaped and would have a multi-use trail skirting its base.
