Went out there last night after work, the bridge is still closed.

 

local news said DOT will not confirm when it will open

 

The bridge is open to vehicle traffic. Couple of points though. 1) You can get to the Dam from the AZ side, you must cross over the bridge and take the exit on the NV side to get to the dam. In other words you do not have a choice, if you are going to AZ from NV you must cross the bridge. 2) On the AZ side the 4 lane highway was not completed yet, maybe by now, what this means is that going from NV to AZ after you cross the bridge the traffic is narrowed down to one lane for about 13 miles. Could be some slow traffic on weekends.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll be in Henderson Friday night, just without my bike. If I can access the bridge, I do want to walk across as I understand there is a pedestrian lane on the dam side.

 

I took my dad, and his wife, down to see the bridge yesterday. The bridge is open for vehicles to drive across, but the walkway was closed. I heard on the radio today that the walkway, and the place to park, is still closed.

We had quite a bit of rain yesterday and that may be the reason. So it may be open soon, or not? But it is quite an improvement over the old route. I have lived here for 47 years, and driven/ridden that road thousands of times, and cannot believe the ease of yesterdays trip.

On the downside, the ride over the bridge is really boring. There are walls on either side that prevent you from seeing anything. Perhaps an 18 wheeler, or bus, gets a good view but when you are in a cage it is almost like riding in a tunnel.

But is is possible to take a turn and get on the old road to go down to the dam. 35 years ago sometimes when I would get off work at 1 or 2 a.m., I would take a ride to the dam. It is a really fun ride. Lots of turns, a mountain on 1 side of the road, and a deep canyon on the other side. There is about a 3 foot high wall on the canyon side. But there are enough openings to see what a fall it could be if you aren't careful.

My father used to drive 18 wheelers through there, and to Phoenix as a bus driver for LTR back in the 60's and 70's.

Ron

 

I rode there exactly 1 year ago to check out the construction, will be going back to ride across it. Awesome project

 

New York Times article about the new bridge. The bridge and the sidewalk are open.

BigLow

 

Flew in to Vegas for a few days and heard the bridge was open. A real friendly, helpful waiter from the Luxor told us how much he had enjoyed going out on opening day and said we just had to see it. So while the wives were in a conference Friday; a friend and I went to check it out.

We were already planning to go, the bridge was a bonus. I had wanted to see the dam for many years, since I had done a paper on it in Jr high many (30 ) years ago. Always has interested me, I think I've watched everything on the dam that Discovery and History channel have ever made.

It was definitely worth the trip. The new bridge is magnificent and so incredibly big, as is the dam. We walked over the bridge and took many photos of the dam, a great photo op that was only reserved for helicopter or planes before. The pics I took and the ones I have seen before don't do it justice, they just don't impress the size of the place. What an incredible task it was to build that with the equipment available in the 30's.

We took the full tour down into the power plant and through the tunnels inside the dam. For the $30 per person full tour plus $7 parking I think it was the cheapest thing we did the whole 4 days! Including the tour and walking around we were there for just over 4 hours and saw about all they were able to show us.

You can't see them in the first photo but there are people all along the bridge, the cars and trucks are behind a fairly tall concrete guard rail. I saw a group ride by on several harleys and they were standing up as they crossed the bridge to try and see the dam. If you leave the bypass you can go down to the parking garage at the dam and/or drive over the top as you could before the bridge opening. Tour guides said the bridge has made a huge difference in safety and tourist ability to enjoy the dam in just the few days it has been open.

With the parking area up by the bridge and the parking garage close to the dam walking really isn't a big issue. I was really surprised the walk to and onto the bridge was not more significant. With all the walking we did around the casino and Fremont street experience the dam wasn't so bad.

Another cool sight, we were sitting on the plane waiting to leave this morning and everything went on hold for several minutes. We had a great view of Air Force one shooting down the runway and taking off after the presidents visit, kinda cool but happened so fast I didn't even get a pic!

From the top of the dam


Here you can see people walking on the bridge. It is BIG!


From the walkway on the bridge.

 

I believe I just heard on the news that AZ just finished the 4 lane connection to the bridge, so now it is smooth sailing all the way across from NV to AZ. Yes as one poster said you can't see the dam from a car as you cross the bridge. This was done on purpose to prevent the looky loos from causing accidents.

 

Yes. My son lives in Vegas and took a ride over it when it opened a few days ago. He said that the side walls are so high that you cannot see anything except very far off features.