Recognizing that safe and efficient highway transportation is a matter of important interest to all the people of the State, and that an adequate highway system is a vital part of the national defense, the Legislature hereby determines and declares that:

1. An integrated system of state highways and roads is essential to the general welfare of the State.

2. Providing such a system of facilities, its efficient management, maintenance and control is recognized as a problem and as the proper prospective of highway legislation.

3. Inadequate highways and roads obstruct the free flow of traffic, resulting in undue cost of motor vehicle operation, endangering the health and safety of the citizens of the State, depreciating property values, and impeding general economic and social progress of the State.

4. In designating the highways and roads of the State as provided in this chapter, the Legislature places a high degree of trust in the hands of those officials whose duty it is, within the limits of available funds, to plan, develop, operate, maintain, control and protect the highways and roads of this state, for present as well as for future use.

5. To this end, it is the express intent of the Legislature to make the Board of Directors of the Department of Transportation custodian of the state highways and roads and to provide sufficiently broad authority to enable the Board to function adequately and efficiently in all areas of appropriate jurisdiction, subject to the limitations of the Constitution and the legislative mandate proposed in this chapter.

6. The Legislature intends:

(a) To declare, in general terms, the powers and duties of the Board of Directors, leaving specific details to be determined by reasonable regulations and declarations of policy which the Board may promulgate.

(b) By general grant of authority to the Board of Directors to delegate sufficient power and authority to enable the Board to carry out the broad objectives contained in this chapter.

7. The problem of establishing and maintaining adequate highways and roads, eliminating congestion, reducing crash frequency and taking all necessary steps to ensure safe and convenient transportation on these public ways is no less urgent.

8. The Legislature hereby finds, determines and declares that this chapter is necessary for the preservation of the public safety, the promotion of the general welfare, the improvement and development of facilities for transportation in the State, and other related purposes necessarily included therein, and as a contribution to the system of national defense.

9. The words “construction,” “maintenance” and “administration” used in Section 5 of Article 9 of the Constitution of the State of Nevada are broad enough to be construed to include and as contemplating the construction, maintenance and administration of the state highways and roads as established by this chapter and the landscaping, roadside improvements and planning surveys of the state highways and roads.

(Added to NRS by 1957, 664; A 1965, 998; 1977, 156; 1979, 1762; 1987, 1798; 1989, 1298; 2015, 1671)