Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony says a final decision on whether to strip carpool restrictions from Interstate 15 and Interstate 11 in Las Vegas is still about a year away, even as he keeps pushing to see the HOV lanes disappear entirely. Anthony, who also serves as vice chair of the Nevada Department of Transportation Board of Directors, has called eliminating the lanes his last major objective in a fight that stretches back to his days on the Las Vegas City Council.
A Years-Long Campaign Nears Its Federal Test
Anthony helped initiate a two-year study with the federal government examining whether HOV lanes could be removed from portions of I-15 and I-11, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He told the paper that no jurisdiction in the country has previously gone through a process to eliminate HOV lanes, meaning Nevada's review has no template to follow. The process requires examining environmental issues, federal law, executive action and the grants originally used to build the roads, since the restrictions are tied to federal funding rather than a simple state policy choice.
That timeline traces back to April 2023, when the Nevada Transportation Board of Directors mandated a multi-year National Environmental Policy Act study to evaluate eliminating HOV restrictions in Southern Nevada. The Nevada Department of Transportation has estimated that review will finish by 2027, before the Federal Highway Administration renders any final decision. The federal government could impose financial implications if HOV lanes funded through federal grants are removed without that concurrence, since Project Neon received federal funding partly tied to including the carpool lanes in the first place.
Enforcement Windows Have Already Shrunk Repeatedly
The current HOV rules restrict lanes to carpool use only from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, with the lanes open to general traffic the rest of the time. That's a far cry from when the I-15 HOV lanes first required two or more occupants 24 hours a day, seven days a week after opening as part of Project Neon in 2019. NDOT reduced that to 5 a.m. through 10 p.m. seven days a week in 2020, and Anthony limited the hours again in 2023 to the current weekday peak windows only.
Anthony has worked toward eliminating Las Vegas HOV lanes since 2019, back when he sponsored a Las Vegas City Council resolution — passed unanimously — instructing municipal courts to reduce HOV violation fines inside city limits from $250 moving violations down to $10 parking tickets, as the Review-Journal previously reported. He says he now receives positive responses to the shorter operating hours, and that Las Vegas motorists have told him traffic flows better since the lanes opened up to general use outside restricted periods. Anthony has said people should use the HOV lanes outside those restricted windows to get to work, school or other destinations more quickly.
Public sentiment appears to back him up. A public input survey NDOT conducted in Fall 2024 found 55.9% of Southern Nevada respondents said HOV lanes do not improve travel times, gas savings or stress levels, while 68.8% said the lanes haven't changed their carpooling habits at all. About 36% of respondents advocated for complete removal or conversion to general-use lanes, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.
Infrastructure Complicates a Clean Break
Undoing the lanes isn't just a matter of repainting stripes. I-11 had existing HOV lanes before the I-15 lanes were added, and the I-15 HOV drop lanes sit at Harmon Avenue and near Charleston Boulevard at the Neon Gateway in downtown Las Vegas. Removing the HOV designation could shutter left-hand freeway exit and entry points built specifically for carpool access — infrastructure that was part of the nearly $1 billion Project Neon project, which constructed 22 consecutive miles of connected HOV lanes along I-15 and U.S. 95, including an 81-foot-tall HOV flyover bridge, when it wrapped up in August 2019.
The stakes for getting this right are significant given how heavily traveled the corridor is. The central I-15 corridor through downtown Las Vegas carries over 300,000 vehicles daily with 25,000 lane changes per hour, and state transportation planners project that daily vehicular demand will double by 2035, per NDOT figures. Under federal law, Title 23 U.S.C. § 166 requires state highway authorities operating HOV lanes to submit annual performance certifications to the Federal Highway Administration and implement corrective action plans if traffic speeds fall below federal minimum thresholds during peak hours — a compliance mechanism that adds another layer to any elimination decision.
Nevada Keeps Building HOV Lanes Even As It Studies Killing Them
In a twist that underscores the state's split-track approach, NDOT broke ground in 2024 on a $78 million project to widen and restripe I-15 from six to 10 general-purpose lanes while simultaneously adding a new HOV lane in each direction between St. Rose Parkway and State Route 160, with completion anticipated in Spring 2026. NDOT also fast-tracked a $22 million Active Traffic Management project in August 2026 along four miles of I-11 between the Spaghetti Bowl and Rainbow Boulevard, installing seven overhead electronic gantries to let the restricted HOV segment reopen ahead of schedule, according to the Nevada Globe.
Nevada wouldn't be the first state to scrap carpool lanes outright. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1662 into law in July 2025, eliminating HOV lane designations statewide after federal provisions allowing alternative fuel vehicles in carpool lanes expired, as Hoodline previously reported. For now, Anthony says he plans to continue pushing the elimination process forward while the federal study proceeds, even though he acknowledges a definitive answer for Las Vegas drivers remains roughly a year away.
