The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) says the Spaghetti Bowl in Washoe County is the busiest intersection in northern Nevada.
If you’ve felt that lately there have been more crashes in that area, you are correct.
"That whole thing is, it's a mess,” said Chevi Johnson, local resident, when asked about traveling through the bowl. “It's a mess. It takes people sometimes two hours to get to work.”
The bowl is the interchange between Interstate 80 and Interstate 580.
In the past two months, a lot of crashes have happened in the area.
According to the Nevada Highway Patrol, just in July and August, there have been 71 crashes in and around the bowl.
To give some perspective, there were 46 crashes in the same time frame last year.
"Typically most of the crashes are fender-benders, stuff that you see on the side of the road,” said Trooper James LaRose, Public Information Officer, Nevada Highway Patrol. “It slows traffic down, and it causes some problems.”
Not all crashes are created equal.
There was a deadly motorcycle crash, a seven-car pile-up, and a turned-over semi-truck all within a month.
There are some common issues troopers see every day.
“People are following too closely, driving too fast, trying to make that morning or even an afternoon commute in 20 minutes when it's really a 30 or 40 minute drive,” Trooper LaRose said.
The bowl was originally constructed between 1969 and 1971.
The population for the area back then was about 130,000 people. That has since ballooned to more than 420,000 people.
"The commute going out to the east has dramatically increased,” LaRose said.
This is in large part due to the growth of the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.
Trooper LaRose says they want to increase the enforcement, but have their hands tied.
“Unfortunately, staffing doesn't allow us to have the numbers that we need in all of these locations, which we would love to have, obviously,” he said.
NDOT is in the middle of a five-phase project for the Spaghetti Bowl area through 2039.
