RENO — Michelle Dennis has been pondering the area around South Virginia Street and South McCarran Boulevard since 1998. On Wednesday, the project manager for the Regional Transportation Commission saw the beginning of a freeway interchange project to improve traffic congestion in the area, a project that has been 12 years in the making.

“It is exciting,” Dennis said just before the front loader roared into action to break ground on the project.

The interchange is expected to take up to a year and a half to complete, but once done it will alleviate traffic congestion for more than 60,000 commuters who clog the intersection of South Virginia Street and South McCarran Boulevard daily.

“I can’t find any other intersections with those types of numbers and the intersection has the only triple left-turn lane in the Reno/Sparks area,” said NDOT spokesperson Scott Magruder. “It’s safe to say it’s one of the busiest.”

The most recent 2008 traffic count on that stretch of U.S. 395 shows 90,000 vehicles a day exit and enter Neil Road, Magruder said. He added that the nearby stretch of Kietzke Lane hosts about 22,000 commuters a day. In addition, 26,000 cars that travel up and down South McCarran Boulevard meet about 40,000 cars coming and going on South Virginia Street at the project intersection.

“We started thinking about this a long time ago,” Dennis said, adding that planning for businesses to maintain their access during construction was a big point in the planning.

Once complete, commuters at the intersection can expect:

• Meadowood Mall Way to extend under the existing freeway and connect with Kietzke Lane

• Widened bridge structures at South Virginia Street and South McCarran Boulevard

• Elimination of the existing southbound off-ramp and northbound on-ramp at Neil Road

• Construction of a new southbound off-ramp and northbound on-ramp at Meadowood Mall Way with frontage roads to connect to the southbound on-ramp and northbound off-ramp at Neil Road

According to Magruder, the new interchange will look similar to what commuters encounter just north of the construction site at South Virginia Street.

The first phase of the project will extend Meadowood Mall Way under the freeway and attach it to Kietzke Lane, Dennis said. After that, commuters will see the freeway work begin as NDOT widens several bridges.

Getting the work done will mean up to 30 months of orange construction cones lining the freeway and surface streets around Meadowood Mall, possibly during two busy holiday shopping seasons.

Dennis said surface street commuters will not be as impacted as those on the freeway.

“Especially coming up on the holiday season, we will be making sure that their (businesses) entrances are clear and that (directional and warning) signs are up,” she said.

The project touches about 10 local businesses; however, Dennis said that none will be shut down or have property taken from them as a result of the construction.

NDOT and RTC officials are claiming that the interchange will be a boon for business, not only increasing commuter access but also creating jobs and fueling the local economy.

According to Magruder, the project is expected to generate more than 100 new jobs during the next year and a half.

“We are talking about not just moving the city of Reno but the economy forward,” Gov. Jim Gibbons said at the groundbreaking event.

The project is the only one in northern Nevada that will be paid for almost entirely with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.

“The construction is completely funded by ARRA,” Dennis said, adding that preliminary planning work and easements were paid for by RTC-5 funds as well as developer’s fees and appropriations from various highway bills.

Meadow Valley Contractors, Inc. will be the general contractor on the $21.8 million project.

“I think they made the right choice,” Gibbons said of the ARRA funding for the project.