Bypass as elusive as Wandering Skipper

"The only solution is to build the damn thing."

That's what then-Carson City Mayor Marv Teixeria said more than 5-and-a-half years ago. The "damn thing" he was referring to was the mythical stretch of asphalt, concrete, tar and sprinkling of gravel commonly referred to as the Carson City Bypass. Early visionaries hoped the magic roadway would lead weary motorists (maybe even 26,000 of them per day) around Carson City, escaping the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Carson Street.

Fast forward to Summer, 2000.

They no longer call it a bypass. The politically correct term today for what they want to dodge Carson City with is "freeway." Its origins have nothing to do with price, for it certainly isn't free, but more to do with free-"dom," the kind you get from doing 70 in a 55.

State transportation officials, who have often proven more elusive than a Wandering Skipper butterfly when it comes to straight answers, last week indicated the official start of the first phase of the freeway project had been delayed another human gestation period (9 months) or so to November, 2001. The delay, state officials say, is a result of some drainage problems. But a source, who probably knows more about what goes on inside the Nevada Department of Transportation than most, told us the only thing that may be draining the project is money.

"Extending it out to November is quite a bit of time," said the source. "It's certainly not the design work that would slow it down. They're $150 million in the red to fund the projects they've got scheduled."

Rewind to January, 1995. City and state officials are meeting to discuss alternatives to the bypass. Ideas include one-way routes on Roop and Stewart streets.

"I personally don't see any of these solutions working," said then-Mayor Teixeria. "The only solution is to build the damn thing."

Move ahead to April, 1996. City officials are discussing traffic, a subject that falls second only to weather and sex.

"When the bypass is done, Carson City will still have a major traffic problem," says then-Carson City Public Works Director Jay Aldean. He suggests the bypass could take years and years to build and that the city ought to continue to look at one-way modifications on Stewart and Roop streets. Then-Mayor Marv doesn't particularly care for the idea, calling it "madness." He doesn't yet know what madness really is.

Three months later Carson City supervisors select a modified freeway between Highway 50 East and Lakeview Road as a preferred alternative. They say the modified freeway will cost $57 million to construct, hinting that a 5-cent tax on gasoline could generate around $16 million of that. They have no idea at the time that four years later the oil producing countries would be hammering Carson City motorists at the fuel pump harder than a sheik's whip on a camel's back.

They also fail to predict that the price tag for the first stage will eventually rise from $57 million to more than $130 million.

One resident reminds the board that the bypass was identified as a primary need as far back as 1968, when hippies clogged Carson Street in search of peace.

Forward to September, 1996. Total cost of the northern segment of the Carson City bypass is said to be $78 million. Meanwhile, fender-benders on Carson Street have made millionaires of headlight vendors.

Move ahead a year. The search is on for the endangered Wandering Skipper, a butterfly scientists believe lives in the wetlands along the bypass path. In order to do genetic testing on the Wandering Skipper, scientists must find 20 to 40 of the buggers. They find only five. The other 15 to 35 must have gotten tired of waiting for the bypass and hitched a ride on the grill of an orange NDOT truck.

Meanwhile, the price estimate for the first phase has dropped to $60 million. As with any tax dollar, plus or minus a million or 10 doesn't seem to matter to anyone.

Bug experts are brought in with federally-issued butterfly nets. They hope the search lasts at least until they qualify for pensions.

January, 1998. The going is tough on the 5-cent gas tax. Consumers are wary of gasoline prices and aren't filling to the brim. "When prices increase 27 cents a gallon, there is less gas being pumped," one city official astutely observed. "People are cost conscious about that."

The gas tax is expected to last until 2012, or until all cars come to a complete halt on Carson Street, whichever comes first.

By October, 1998 NDOT officials had the project going to bid in February, 2001, almost a year and a half behind schedule. They didn't yet know about the nine months that would be tacked on.

January, 1999. Surprise, surprise. There's a new price tag on the project. This one is $77.7 million, up $20 million from the 1996 quote. "I don't think it was envisioned this would happen this way in 1996," says one state official.

The latest word is that the entire bypass could be done by 2008, provided it stays on what NDOT officials call a "reasonable track."

Considering the track record for "reasonable" progress, the odds aren't favorable.

Jeff Ackerman is publisher and editor of the Nevada Appeal