Spaghetti Bowl (Las Vegas)

Spaghetti Bowl
Entering the Spaghetti Bowl
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
Coordinates:	36°10′27″N 115°09′20″W / 36.174119°N 115.155644°W / 36.174119; -115.155644
Roads at junction:	I‑15 I‑515 US 93 US 95 Martin L. King Boulevard
Construction
Type:	interchange
Constructed:	1960s, 1999-2000
Opened:	1968
Maintained by:	Nevada DOT

The Spaghetti Bowl is the colloquial name for a freeway interchange near downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the intersection of Interstate 15, U.S. Route 95 and Interstate 515 (which is multiplexed with US 93 and US 95), as well as Martin Luther King Blvd.

The interchange, which was substantially rebuilt between 1999 and 2000, carries more than 300,000 cars and trucks per day.

History

The original Spaghetti Bowl was built in the mid 1960s, connecting I-15 to the new, cross-town Las Vegas Expressway by 1968. That highway, which carried US 95 (relocated from Bonanza Road) and was later renamed in honor of Oran K. Gragson, served as a mile-long spur to Las Vegas Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas on the east, and eventually served as a new bypass of Rancho Drive for U.S. 95 traffic to the west and north.

Between 1982 and 1994, the US 95 freeway was extended to the east (concurrent with US 93) past downtown and then southeast toward Henderson, Nevada, eventually being co-designated as I-515. Also in the 1980s, new interchanges, including one with a new feeder freeway, the Summerlin Parkway, were constructed along the US 95 Gragson Freeway to the west and northwest of the Spaghetti Bowl. The increased traffic on the cross-town freeway left the I-15 interchange, with its two loop ramps, several closely spaced ramps and no ramp wider than one lane, totally inadequate; it had been designed to carry only about 60,000 vehicles a day.

In the late 1990s, NDOT began a total reconstruction project at the interchange, with new, wider ramps and elimination of the loops. By November 1999, ramps had been built and opened to provide access in all directions to and from nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which had only partial access in the prior configuration. The overall project was completed in August 2000 with the opening of the new flyovers and other reconfigured freeway-to-freeway ramps.

Project Neon

HOV connectors will be added from I-15 north to US 95 north and from US 95 south to I-15 south. On I-15 south of the interchange, new collector-distributor roads outside the Charleston Ave interchange for traffic to and from US 95 will be built.^[1]

References