A new Second Street on-ramp to southbound Interstate 580 opened Thursday morning as part of NDOT's Spaghetti Bowl improvements.

The new southbound I-580 on-ramp from Second Street ramp opened, carrying Second Street traffic entering southbound I-580 over the Mill Street off-ramp.

Previously, drivers traveling from Second Street to southbound I-580 merged into Mill Street on-ramp traffic.

Upon entering southbound I-580 from Second Street, drivers will merge into southbound interstate lanes as part of a temporary construction configuration.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Construction is moving along on the Phase 1 of the Spaghetti Bowl Xpress Project. Drivers will notice a significant change in the next couple of weeks when the Second Street on-ramp opens to southbound I-580. The ramp is much longer than before and includes a bridge over the Mill Street off-ramp. NDOT says 1,500 vehicles travel through the interchanges each hour.

"We're right across the street from GSR," Gov. Steve Sisolak, D-Nevada said. "They have 2,000 team members going in and out of there, every day, so it's going to make a lot of people, not just our tourists but also our workforce easier for them to get into and out of work."

Sisolak got a first-and look at the project, Monday. He says the overhaul of the freeway system is critical as our community grows. The Reno-Sparks population is expected to grow by 27% by 2040.

"The population is expected to grow considerably in the next decade and we've got to keep up with that," Sisolak said. "We've got to make sure that our roadways are going to be able to handle that increase in volume."

Phase 1 of the SBX Project is expected to be completed by December. The final piece will be the two-lane ramp from eastbound I-80 to southbound I-580.

"This is just the first phase of five," Bob Vrooman, Project Manager for the SBX Project, Nevada Department of Transportation said. "This is the first one we were able to attack quickly, a lot of work, six bridges widened, one was brand new, so it's a very small segment of a lot of work done."

New southbound lanes opened more than a month ago. That allows traffic to move more freely. Now that those are open, the focus shifts to the onramp.

"We noticed speeds were up, which is a good thing and a bad thing," Vrooman said. "It means things are moving but it also means people need to slow down through construction."

Approximately 250,000 vehicles travel through the Spaghetti Bowl, each day. Allowing for more traffic involved the demolition, widening and lengthening of several bridges.

"The Truckee River bridge was the longest girders on the project, so it was major work in there, a lot of paint work that had to go in there, too," Vrooman said. "A lot of work, below the ground, near the river, which is very tricky work because you have water that comes into the holes and they were able to accommodate the de-watering with a plan to send the water to the city of Sparks."

"It's a lot of work and it was a great engineering marvel, quite frankly, to get that done and to undertake the obstacles that were necessary," Sisolak said.

Each girder weighs more than 100,000 pounds and crews used millions of pounds of steel to build that bridge.

Ames Construction and Q&D Construction are both working on the project. Over the last year, crews have worked 300,000 man hours without a safety issue or lost-time incident. The job requires a lot of workers.

"Not only are you going to make traffic safer and quicker for everybody but there are a lot of jobs," Sisolak said. "You see a lot of people around me with these vests on that are working here every single day to provide for themselves and their families."

Phase 1 includes cultural artwork from the three tribes in the area. Large steel structures are shaped like baskets that Native Americans used to collect pine cones to harvest pine nuts. The sound walls also include their art.

"Two of them are Washoe baskets, two of them are Shoshone baskets and two of them are Paiute baskets," Mischon Eben, Manager of the Cultural Resource Program for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony said.

"It's difficult to build a freeway," Vrooman said. "They're not the prettiest thing around but hopefully, these can make it a little softer on the eyes and certainly help the people that live in the area."

The tribes were part of the environmental and artistic portions of the project. The final product will include a 16-foot bronze statue of a native dancer and story boards of their creation stories.

"We're also going to create stories of the wolf," Eben said. "You know, go Wolf Pack, but also stories of the coyote, their important spiritual animal elements."

Phase 2 of the project could begin as early as 2024. That includes upgrades to Interstate 80 between Kietzke Lane and McCarran Blvd. in Sparks. Completing all five phases is expected to happen by 2039. 

Another project is set to begin in 2023 to alleviate traffic congestion between I-80 and the North Valleys.