Public hearing for freeway emotional fast lane for some

Life is going to be a lot noisier for some Carson City residents when the freeway is built.

Some will lose a portion of their land, like 31-year Silver Sage Drive resident Lozia Lopez.

"You can't stop progress," she said at Tuesday night's public information meeting, the last one for this phase of the project.

Others will lose their homes.

Like Jim Honda, a Snyder Avenue resident who stood in front of a large aerial shot of the Carson City Freeway Phase 2, the preliminary design for this phase of the freeway project.

Honda gazed at the place where his new home should be - and instead there is a gray bar, the Snyder Avenue overpass.

"It's going through our house that we just put up," he said. "We were just notified. We just moved in this July. It's brand new."

And Honda is laughing about it. He hides a giggle behind his hand. Honda said he can't help but laugh, "it's just like TV."

Honda fell into a trap that others have also stumbled into: When the Nevada Department of Transportation first proposed this phase, a Snyder Avenue overpass wasn't in the plan. So Honda bought his lot and started building. Then the plan changed.

Mary Luster, an NDOT right-of-way agent, said the Hondas will get the market value for their home and land. Honda laughed in a conciliatory manner.

"But we're happy with it now," Honda said. He said he didn't want to fight with Luster or any one else at NDOT. It wasn't their fault.

Ed Williams, who will also lose his home, joked that he is going to march up and down Snyder Avenue wearing a sandwich board saying: "NDOT took my house!"

He sold the parcel to the Hondas before he found out about the Snyder overpass. Williams and his son, Don, built his gray home with green trim in 1991. Williams said he'll probably have to vacate within the year. He may move to Gardnerville, where he works.

"The Snyder overpass makes it impossible for my house to stay," he said.

The preliminary aerial maps were arranged in a half moon inside the Fuji Park Exhibit Hall. About 70 people congregated around them, drawing invisible lines from the freeway to their homes on Silver Sage Drive, Clear Creek Avenue or elsewhere.

They stooped over elevation drawings, or debated with NDOT officials.

Gary Kulb, who lives on Roland Street, said he likes to sit in his hot tub and look out at the sagebrush spread over Ebbetts Pass and the snow on Jobs Peak.

In about three years he'll look out his back door and see thousands of cars speeding by on a new bypass.

"I'll have to move my corral back and plant some fast-growing trees," he said. "I'll go with the flow. You can't argue with needing the bypass. I probably won't even use the darn thing."

The freeway, planned in Carson City for decades, will connect Highway 395 at Arrowhead Drive to Highway 50 West, easing the city's congestion by rerouting commuters around downtown.

The freeway's first phase is already designed and under construction. Designs for rest of the freeway, from U.S. Highway 50 East to South Carson Street, are 60 percent complete.

n Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.

Want to comment?

Carson City residents have until April 15 to make comments on the project.

• Write a letter to Jim Gallegos, project manager, NDOT, 1263 S. Stewart St., Carson City, NV 89712

• Go to www.nevadadot.com/pub_involvement.

• Make a statement to the public stenographer, which will be part of public record

• General information is at 888-7320.