Work continues on bypass as NDOT seeks funding for final phase

Utility work, a major drainage system, fencing and two bridges are under construction on the Carson bypass project.

But the Nevada Department of Transportation still doesn't have the estimated $100 million needed to build the road bed underneath those bridges and finish the bypass.

The bypass freeway now ends at the Fairview Drive overpass. But, south of there, contractors are working hard on the infrastructure that will make that section of freeway possible.

NDOT Spokesman Scott Magruder said the contract now under way will complete a bridge at Koontz Lane by next spring. Then work will begin on a bridge crossing the freeway route at Clearview - which will be finished by the fall of 2011.

Currently, Koontz is closed because of that construction. Once it is reopened, Clearview will be closed while that bridge is built.

Both those bridges are "at grade" structures, meaning the eventual freeway will be depressed and run beneath them.

Q&D Construction of Reno won the contract with a bid of $7,548,316 - mostly for the bridges. Magruder said the other big piece of the contract is building the drainage system through that part of the valley. He said the drainage is a 4-by-8 feet channel to remove water from the south portion of Eagle Valley. That drain channel, which runs parallel to Edmonds, is almost to Valley View, said Magruder.

The project to finish the bypass, reconnecting it to highways 50 and 395 at the Spooner junction, however, remains unfunded. But Magruder said it is still in NDOT's long range plan.