By Joseph Robertia
Redoubt Reporter
For Kasilof residents this spring, all roads north lead to construction.
Kalifornsky Beach Road and the Sterling Highway, the only two routes between Kasilof and Kenai, Soldotna and points north, are both under construction.
As a result of the current one-lane restrictions and reduced speed zones on both roads drivers have already been experiencing construction-related delays ranging from five to 20 minutes. And K-Beach will soon close for two weeks, but project engineers are optimistic about the future traffic flow.
“I think we’re seeing the worst delays of the project. It should get better from here,” said Jonathan Tague, Sterling Highway project engineer with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. “We’re trying to minimize the impact to motorists as best we can.”
On the 16.7-mile federally funded Sterling Highway project, the top layer paving work —2 more inches of asphalt across the top — began May 12 and is near completion. The project, being done by Alaska Road Builders Inc., involved pre-leveling and paving last year from August to October.
As in 2009, construction work is conducted in roughly three-mile sections from Soldotna south to Cohoe Loop Road. The work takes two to three days per lane, and the highway is reduced to one lane during construction hours, with a pilot car guiding traffic through the construction area.
Last season the Sterling Highway construction project did not take a hiatus during the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and as scores of motorists were headed south for fishing at one of the southern peninsula rivers’ weekend king salmon openers, clamming or other recreation, traffic backed up for hours in both directions. Tague said that scenario will not play out this year.
“We’ve made a big window around holidays and high-volume weekends, so there won’t be any equipment on the roads during those times,” he said. “We’re also hoping to have the majority of mainline paving done by Memorial weekend.”
Work is currently being done Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. After the holiday weekend, Tague said construction would switch to evening hours, with work done from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Construction is expected to be completed by June 11.
This is good news to motorists and businesses in Kasilof and farther south.
“We’re putting in a store and a concession stand, so we’re hoping people will come despite any inconvenience,” said Jeff Floyd, manager at Crooked Creek RV Park, off Cohoe Loop Road.
Floyd said his busy season hasn’t started yet, and he’s hoping the worst of the construction delays will be done when tourism hits its peak.
“A lot of our reservations are from the Anchorage area, and they’ll be coming in on the Sterling Highway,” he said. “It may slow them down a bit, but they’ll still get here.”
Joe Browning, owner of the Kasilof Riverview Tesoro at Mile 109.5 of the Sterling Highway, said the construction this season is affecting his business far less than last year’s work on the bridge over the Kasilof River.
“Last year business started off good, then their work started and they corked me off for a month and a half. I lost a lost a lot of money,” he said. “This year, I think they’re doing a good job. They’re moving right along, and hopefully they’ll be done by Memorial weekend because that’s the big kickoff for all the business down here.”
“After the Sterling Highway project goes to a night shift, the Coal Creek project (at Mile 4 of K-Beach Road) will really gear up,” said Gary Walklin, Coal Creek project engineer with DOT. “We didn’t want to have a simultaneous impact with major restrictions on both roads.”
Construction on the Coal Creek project, being done by GMC Contracting Inc., began April 28 and is expected to run through June 16, with the bulk of the work occurring at the beginning of next month. During that time, K-Beach Road from Ariels Lane to Ole Timers Lane will be completely closed from June 2 through June 15.
“It’s a very labor-intensive project with a narrow, high embankment,” Walklin said.
As a result, there is no right-of-way to create a temporary road around the project area. “A closure was the best option. The further we ran it into summer, the more of an impact it would have on the fishing and tourism industries,” he said.
While still open, motorists can expect one-lane traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but residents of the area say they haven’t yet seen much delay.
“So far I haven’t had any problems at all,” said Kevin Hayes, who lives off Ole Timers Lane. “When I go to work at 7 a.m. the longest I’ve had to wait is about 30 seconds, and coming home in the afternoon it was probably a two-minute wait, tops.”
The purpose of the project is to replace the existing 9-foot hanging culvert beneath the road with an 18-foot diameter, 190-foot-long pipe in an effort to enhance fish passage through Coal Creek.
Rehabilitation of the adjacent creek bed and bank will also be completed, said Robert Ruffner, executive director of the Kenai Watershed Forum. Ruffner said he has high hopes for the outcome of the project.
“In terms of hydrology, Coal Creek is very similar to Slikok Creek, where after the culvert was replaced we saw a significant difference in fish moving back and forth. It was almost immediate, according to studies done with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game,” Ruffner said. “So, it should provide better passage for the juvenile fish, including king, coho and pink salmon, and Dolly Varden and steelhead trout.”
A few other roads projects are planned so far for this summer, including a paving project in the Johnson Lake, Crooked Creek and Tustumena roads areas, and installation of a bike-path extension along K-Beach Road from Bridge Access Road.
Weekly updates on roads projects can be found at www.alaskanavigator.org, or for more information, contact DOT at 262-2870.
