Sparks could be the first city in Nevada to build a toll road – but only if the Nevada state legislature is willing to change state law.
The Sparks City Manager’s Office has submitted a bill to the Legislature that would build a 13-mile toll road between Spanish Springs and the Tahoe-Reno industrial area.
Currently, Nevada law states that no fee may be charged for the use of a road as part of a project undertaken by a public-private partnership. This prohibits the construction of a toll road under a public-private partnership agreement.
Sparks’ proposal would create an exception to that law, allowing the Washoe County Regional Transportation Commission and the city of Sparks to enter into a public-private partnership with a construction company to design, build, operate and maintain the roughly $500 million highway. The bonds would be repaid with revenue from the highway’s tolls.
In short, the construction company would advance the money and the bonds would eventually be repaid annually by the city or RTC with funds they receive from motorists using the highway. The interest rate on these bonds, who will build the highway and advance the money, and the amount of the toll are still undetermined.
Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson said the city is currently exploring other ways to raise money to pay off the bonds, but the request to amend the law will at least give them the option to collect the toll and use it to pay off the road.
The proposal is not yet in draft form, but will be modeled on Senate Bill 506, which was passed in the 2011 legislative session to allow for the construction of the Boulder City Bypass Road as a demonstration project for a toll road.
However, the Boulder City project was not ultimately a toll road. The bypass received federal funding, so no tolls were required to finance it.
The Senate and Assembly would have to pass this bill in their respective bodies and then have the governor approve and sign it. However, the Legislature would not be responsible for providing money for the project.
“We would never get the Northern Nevada road funded by the state,” Lawson told RGJ. “(This project) would get a solution sooner and faster.”
“It also gives the local government some control over its own destiny. It’s not waiting to get its piece of the Nevada state pie.”
Council member Charlene Bybee said she fully supports the proposal because it is a “much-needed road” and she believes it is an innovative way to do it.
Lawson agreed, saying the road is necessary because most people who work at the TRI center commute from Reno and Sparks. Because of these commuters, there is constant traffic congestion on Sparks streets during work hours, as well as on Interstate 80, which heads east toward the industrial center in Storey County.
Because a large portion of the people who work in this industrial area live specifically in Spanish Springs, the city wanted to build a freeway from La Posada Drive in Spanish Springs to USA Parkway to halve the commuter route – without having to take Pyramid Highway to I-80 – and to relieve freeway congestion and provide drivers with a safer route.
“It’s a quality of life issue for workers out there,” Lawson said. “They’re starting to not take jobs there because they have to wait so long to get back home.”
The TRI Center is home to the Tesla-Panasonic Gigafactory, former Tesla executive JB Straubel’s Redwood Materials battery campus, and offices of Google, Switch and Walmart. Lawson said that as with other toll roads across the country, those companies would reimburse their employees for toll costs to keep them interested in working at their plants. California, for example, requires employers to reimburse their employees for the tolls they pay to commute to work. He believes those Nevada companies will do the same.
The goal is for these large industrial companies to ultimately finance the highway bonds through the use of the highways by their employees.
“I think that’s the beauty of the whole thing: the people who created the need and drove the use are paying for the road,” Lawson said.
