The Road to Somewhere, Provided Nobody Objects

In Nevada, there's nothing more certain than the arrival of another traffic study. Give a committee a highway, a growing industrial park, and sufficient automobiles. And before long there will be maps on tables, arrows pointing in several directions, and men and women explaining that the solution is just around the corner—provided, of course, that nobody minds the corner being moved.

On Tuesday, Storey County commissioners joined the Regional Transportation Commission for a feasibility study about Interstate 80 and the congestion near the Tahoe Reno Industrial Complex. Two possibilities had been placed upon the altar of progress: one involving roads along Vista Boulevard and another following the La Posada corridor. Both proposed roads faced a familiar obstacle—people.

One resident warned that the northeast connector could diminish the quality of life by opening the region to data centers, commercial development, and housing. This is an interesting feature of civilization: first we complain that there is nothing here, then we complain when something comes here, and finally we build a road so more things can come here and complain about those, too.

The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony also objected, though not to transportation itself. Michon Eben said the tribe was concerned about the destruction of cultural resources and noted that the colony represents the 650th generation of Nevadans in the Great Basin. She made it plain that the significance of the land extends considerably beyond the arrowheads and projectile points a person might find upon it.

This presents transportation planners with an ancient difficulty. A road requires land, while history requires that the land remember what happened upon it. Unfortunately, asphalt has never demonstrated much talent for remembering.

Commissioner Alexis Hill and others suggested that light rail deserves consideration if the connector roads prove too costly. This was a refreshing idea, since light rail has the remarkable quality of being both a transportation solution and a future subject for another feasibility study.

In the end, commissioners voted 3-1 to move the connector projects into the National Environmental Policy Act process for further review. Thus the road to solving the traffic problem has begun—with another study, another process, and, if history is any guide, quite possibly another traffic problem waiting at the end of it.