ADVERTISEMENT
Shop at Jay’s Market at 190 East Flamingo Road at the Koval Lane intersection east of the Strip.
ADVERTISEMENT
Presenting sponsor of this story is Las Vegas Cyclery
(Publisher’s Note: Occasionally, LVSportsBiz.com publishes Las Vegas life stories that may focus on road safety and crash issues. It’s not the typical sports-business story on Allegiant Stadium or the Bill Foley bobblehead, but LVSportsBiz management hopes you find this story interesting and relevant to your life.)
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Coors Banquet 24-ounce can with the piss-yellow color exterior is there near the corner of State Route 159 and Avery Street every single day.
I pick it up every morning along with other discarded cans and plastic bottles littering the roadsides.
But the next morning there’s always another tall Coors can with a few ounces of beer in it lying on the ground. Sometimes it’s along SR 159. Other times it’s on the dirt along Avery Street. Sometimes I see two or three of these cans.
Every.
Single.
Morning.
There’s a person chugging at least 24 ounces of beer while driving between Las Vegas and Pahrump. Perhaps we can tolerate the moron for littering. But driving buzzed and possibly killing an innocent person — well, that’s game over.
And that’s Las Vegas.
Living outside of Vegas where State Route 159 intersects with State Route 160 (also known as Blue Diamond Road) allows me to soak up inspiring landscape. It’s raw earth, with undulating hills and dirt trails that bring a smile and satisfaction.
It also provides a ringside seat to a disturbing number of people who operate motorized vehicles in illegal, dangerous and reckless ways.
Take for instance the hundreds of people who make illegal left turns from State Route 159 around a barrier to reach Avery Street to cut through to State Route 159, all to avoid the 160-159 traffic light.
They’re making left turns on what is basically a four-lane highway, turning in front of cars and trucks coming at them at 65 mph. They’re also racing down Avery Street to make the left turn on SR 159.
There are the truckers who make illegal turns on to Avery Street, which is off-limits to trucks. But somehow they think their trips are enhanced by cutting through a side street between two state roads.
The scenic beauty that takes my breath away and offers meditative healing stands in stark contrast to the behavior of people on the roads that cut through the land here.
*
I often ride my bicycle on the State Route 159 shoulders and power of bicycling is that it connects you to the land and the things along the way.
It’s heartbreaking to see the roadside memorials along State Route 159.
In only three miles from the corner of Avery Street to just past a road that goes into the small village of Blue Diamond, there are no fewer than five memorials. RIP to the people who lost their lives in this beautiful area.
As I ride my bike, I see so much discarded cans, bottles and garbage along with the remnants of crashes and wrecks. I think about the person behind every crash. Did they survive? How are they doing? What injuries did they sustain and are they healing?
Here’s a motorcycle license plate I found last week:
I witness so much reckless driving on our roads. Running red lights is routine.
But there’s hardcore libertarian streak that runs through people in Nevada. There’s a sense of let me be and let me do what I want, even if their reckless and dangerous driving harms, injures and kills others.
*
I lived in metro New York City, South Florida, Denver, metro Seattle and Tampa before moving to Las Vegas in 2012.
It’s warm, dry and scenic here and Las Vegas serves as a geographic base camp for me to spend time in other western U.S. locations like the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, the Pacific Coast and the Rockies.
Las Vegas is also going gangbusters in growing a sports industry that seems like it knows no boundaries or caps on government subsidies for stadiums and sports events. It proves rich material to report on for LVSportsBiz.com, my news website on the marketing and development of the Las Vegas sports industry.
The public leaders have oversold the hype because this explosive sports industry growth has not delivered the vital quality-of-life amenities like public transportation from the airport to the Strip, enough doctors and health care workers for a growing population base of 2.3 million and high enough wages for people to afford houses that are way overvalued for this market.
On Saturday, I decided to explore an area of Las Vegas far from the Strip.
It’s the historic passageway into Las Vegas in the old days.
Boulder Highway. I parked my car in downtown Las Vega, took my bike out of the car and drove down Fremont Street, which turned into Boulder Highway.
People living on the streets, on pedestrian bridges and along flood control channels painted a different picture than the LVCVA ads trumpeting the Strip.
There’s a lot of poverty in Las Vegas, which gets eclipsed by the shiny lights and buildings of the Strip.
*
I have cut way back on bicycling on roads around Las Vegas. People who live here or are passing through operate their vehicles in ways that threaten by safety.
Instead, I still bike, but choose a bike with fat tires that can navigate the dirt and rocky trails in the Red Rock National Conservation Area. Or if I’m on the road bike, there’s the Red Rock Scenic Drive.
Las Vegas’s Strip may be a wonderful Hollywood facade complete with entertainment options and the identity of the market is wrapped up in the razzle-dazzle of the hotel-casinos and gambling.
But off the Strip, Las Vegas needs help in livability issues.
PROMO