Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony says a final decision on whether to strip carpool restrictions from Interstate 15 and Interstate 11 in Las Vegas is still about a year away, even as he keeps pushing to see the HOV lanes disappear entirely. Anthony, who also serves as vice chair of the Nevada Department of Transportation Board of Directors, has called eliminating the lanes his last major objective in a fight that stretches back to his days on the Las Vegas City Council.
A Years-Long Campaign Nears Its Federal Test
Anthony helped initiate a two-year study with the federal government examining whether HOV lanes could be removed from portions of I-15 and I-11, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He told the paper that no jurisdiction in the country has previously gone through a process to eliminate HOV lanes, meaning Nevada’s review has no template to follow. The process requires examining environmental issues, federal law, executive action and the grants originally used to build the roads, since the restrictions are tied to federal funding rather than a simple state policy choice.
That timeline traces back to April 2023, when the Nevada Transportation Board of Directors mandated a multi-year National Environmental Policy Act study to evaluate eliminating HOV restrictions in Southern Nevada. The Nevada Department of Transportation has estimated that review will finish by 2027, before the Federal Highway Administration renders any final decision. The federal government could impose financial implications if HOV lanes funded through federal grants are removed without that concurrence, since Project Neon received federal funding partly tied to including the carpool lanes in the first place.
Enforcement Windows Have Already Shrunk Repeatedly
The current HOV rules restrict lanes to carpool use only from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, with the lanes open to general traffic the rest of the time. That’s a far cry from when the I-15 HOV lanes first required two or more occupants 24 hours a day, seven days a week after opening as part of Project Neon in 2019. NDOT reduced that to 5 a.m. through 10 p.m. seven days a week in 2020, and Anthony limited the hours again in 2023 to the current weekday peak windows only.
Anthony has worked toward eliminating Las Vegas HOV lanes since 2019, back when he sponsored a Las Vegas City Council resolution — passed unanimously — instructing municipal courts to reduce HOV violation fines inside city limits from $250 moving violations down to $10 parking tickets, as the Review-Journal previously reported. He says he now receives positive responses to the shorter operating hours, and that Las Vegas motorists have told him traffic flows better since the lanes opened up to general use outside restricted periods. Anthony has said people should use the HOV lanes outside those restricted windows to get to work, school or other destinations more quickly…