LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – City of Las Vegas traffic engineer Joseph Norby says at any given time, there are a dozen to 20 traffic studies being conducted throughout the city.
Sensors are being installed on the road to record vehicle speeds and other data.
“We’ll count the cars, we’ll videotape, if it’s a pedestrian issue, we’ll count the pedestrians,” Norby said.
These studies could take days, weeks or years. Based on the results, the city may make changes to improve traffic flow and safety, like at Sahara and Las Verdes, where new pedestrian beacons were recently installed to help people cross the intersection.
Sometimes these traffic studies can lead to some even bigger changes, like on the stretch of Main Street near Charleston. The city conducted a traffic study here, and not only do they notice more pedestrians in the area that they initially thought, but they also saw that cars were going slower than the post a 30 mph speed limit, so they lowered it to 25.
“We rely a lot on citizen complaints,” Norby said. “We can’t be everywhere at once, so what are some of those problem areas that people are seeing out there that we can go out and address as well.”
To encourage more of those citizen complaints, the city posted a video on social media last week, showing how the traffic studies work and urging people to report problem areas that may need to be studies. They say complaints have been coming in, mostly about speeding in neighborhoods.
“Often were surprised at how much traffic is actually going through some of these neighborhood streets, and we’re surprised sometimes the speed,” Norby said. “Oftentimes we see vehicles traveling in excess of 10 miles over the speed limit, and those are concerning. So those are the situation where we look at what kind of traffic calming measures can we implement?”
Norby said those traffic fixes in neighborhoods could be as simple as adding a sign or a speed bump.
HOW TO REPORT A PROBLEM
You can report a problem area you’d like to see studied by calling the city’s traffic department at 702-229-6331. You can also click “contact” on cityoflasvegas.com or submit a complaint through the “Click Fix” app.
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