S. Carson St. future covered

The future of South Carson Street once the freeway bypass is complete may be mapped out in the next year.

The South Carson Street Complete Study is one of 19 projects that’s outlined in the two-year unified planning work program proposed by the Carson Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

CAMPO consists of Carson City and Douglas and Lyon counties, which work together to plan transportation projects within the metropolitan area encompassing Carson City, portions of Douglas County around Johnson Lane and Mound House and Dayton in Lyon County.

The coordination allows the group, which only conducts studies and some preliminary design work, to receive federal funding to cover 95 percent of the cost of its work. The remaining 5 percent is split between the entities with Carson City paying about two-thirds.

CAMPO has released a draft of its work program for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 and held a public information meeting at the Carson City Community Center Tuesday.

The Carson Street study, which would be done in the first year of the proposed program and is budgeted to cost $75,000, would consider what to do with the stretch of road between Fairview Drive and Highway 50 at Spooner Junction.

That stretch of Carson Street is currently owned by the Nevada Department of Transportation, but it was always planned to be taken over by the city as part of the original freeway agreement signed in 1997, according to Patrick Pittenger, Carson City transportation manager.

The city is now working with NDOT on an amendment to the agreement to specify when that occurs and for Carson City to receive $5.5 million NDOT has already earmarked to repave the road in the handover.

Traffic on that part of Carson Street is expected to drop significantly, from 45,000 to 25,000 vehicles a day, said Pittenger, once the freeway bypass is done in 2017.

So Carson City is looking at narrowing it and making that stretch of the street, which is lined with car dealers, clothing stores, restaurants and other retailers, more pedestrian friendly.

Once CAMPO completes the study, the project would move onto the Regional Transportation Committee for design and planning.

Other projects in CAMPO’s two-year plan are updates to its travel demand model and Carson City ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) transition plan, and an inventory of Carson City’s roadway network to assess pavement conditions.

The projects cost a total of $760,000. Carson City’s portion is $25,194 to be paid over the two-year period.

CAMPO’s unified planning work program draft is available online at www.CarsonAreaMPO.com.

The public can comment on it by contacting Dirk Goering, transportation planner, at 283-7431 or dgoering@carson.org or by emailing CAMPO at comments@CarsonAreaMPO.com.

The public comment deadline is May 10.