Las Vegas’ Project Neon gets green light

The light is officially on for Project Neon.

The massive road construction project in Las Vegas, which has been budgeted as high as $1.8 billion, received the go-ahead from Nevada state lawmakers when $60 million was allocated on July 11. Project Neon is expected to provide improvements to I-15 and the reopening of F Street into West Las Vegas. F Street, which takes motorists to an African-American neighborhood, did not have access to I-15 during earlier construction, and officials were accused of trying to block the area from downtown redevelopment.

The first installment will be used for preliminary engineering work and right-of-way acquisition.

News of the project launch has been met with mostly negative reviews on the Las Vegas Review-Journal. One commenter noted: “This has to be the biggest waste of money ever. D Street has an underpass that connects to F Street on the other side of the interstate and H Street has an underpass that connects to F Street on the other side of the interstate. Both are about 750 ft from where they are building the F Street underpass. The state really messed up on this one and as always it’s tax money that gets wasted in the process.