Elko County approves $207,000 feasibility study to identify Spring Creek secondary access

The Elko County Board of Commissioners approved a feasibility study proposal from Sanbel to evaluate potential secondary-access corridors connecting SR-227 to the Spring Creek area, a project proponents and residents have sought for decades.

Commissioners emphasized the study should be data-driven: they instructed consultants to make traffic analysis (identifying destinations of the roughly 15,000 vehicles per day that cross the summit) an early task, estimate alignment costs for candidate corridors, and identify interim emergency-access upgrades (for example improving Halleck Road or targeted gravel improvements) so the county can both plan long-term and act on short-term resiliency needs. One commissioner said stakeholders should not be the sole drivers of alignment decisions; "it should be scientific data that guides us," he said.

Sanbel's proposal was presented as a phased scope that can be paid per task; consultants said initial tasks (existing data pull and route-option sketches) are a small share of the total, and the work can be staged across budget years. Commissioners voted to fund the study from the county's infrastructure tax fund and attached the meeting discussion as guidance for a revised scope that prioritizes traffic-origin analysis, cost ranking, emergency-access interim options and growth projections tied to master-plan build-out scenarios.

The study will also identify when a divided highway, upgraded intersections or a new crossing would become financially and operationally necessary, and which segments the county should preserve for right-of-way before development encroaches. Staff will return to the commission with revised language and a task-level payment schedule for phased approvals.