In Carson: Road projects in Lyon, Storey delayed by cost

One day Lyon County residents will see Highway 50 widened to four lanes from Chaves Road to Highway 95A in Silver Springs.

Not anytime soon, though.

According to Scott Magruder, the widening of the road is a project identified by Nevada Department of Transportation officials as a need, but it is one of the long-term plans that won't come to fruition for up to 10 years.

"The good news is it's on our statewide transportation improvement plan and that's a project we have identified as a need," he said. "But it's unfunded right now and there is no date when it might get started. But it's a project that we've identified as necessary."

Kent Cooper, chief of program development for NDOT, who made the department's annual presentation to the Lyon County Commission earlier this month, said NDOT has less money for roads than in previous years, due partly to higher costs for road materials.

He said because of that, the plan to widen Highway 50 to Highway 95A was going to be put on the back burner because of funding shortfalls.

"Prices (for materials) have increased dramatically and it costs a lot more to fix the roads," he said.

The department was still planning to fund rail, bicycle and airport projects and Lyon County was targeted as an area in need of transit service, Cooper said.

Highway 95A through Silver Springs and 338 through Smith Valley are the main focus of NDOT's 2008 work plans on Lyon County roads.

Magruder said there is a lot of need for repairs on state roads in Lyon County, adding that in 2007 Highway 50 between Fernley and Fallon was widened, and the Fernley roundabout landscaped.

"We get calls all the time asking us to do this road or that road," Magruder said. "But the priority is Highway 50."

NDOT director Susan Martinovich echoed Cooper's comments at the presentation to the Storey County Commission on Tuesday.

"We are feeling the pain the counties have felt in that there are not a lot of dollars," she said. "We were supposed to start the year at a low level and ramp up, but it has not ramped up."

She said state income has gone up but the high cost of materials has limited options.

She said NDOT's landscaping and aesthetics program as well as economic development programs will maintain minimal funding.

"We're also committed to maintaining some pavement preservation programs," she said. "If we let a road go, we pay four times that much and the impact is hard on area residents."

She said gas tax money, which pays for roads, stays in the county where it's generated.

Storey County Manager Pat Whitten asked Martinovich about the possibility of the state taking over maintenance of Six Mile Canyon Road, but was told the state was removing roads from its inventory and was not in the position to add one.

In Storey County, NDOT will replace the deck and expansion joints of a bridge over the Truckee River in Lockwood and will grind and pave SR342 from the Lyon County line north for .2 miles in Gold Hill.