Around 90 Kenai Peninsula residents visited the open house featuring the Kenai Spur Highway Renovation and Beaver Loop Road projects on Thursday night at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center.
Kenai Spur Project Manager Sean Holland with the Department of Transportation says the construction will be done in two phases since the state has secured only half of the $40 million is will cost to complete.
Holland: “We’re thinking about starting at the Kenai side, for various reasons. The first reason being we can cover the most distance with the money we have because on the other side of the project there’s some projects that have a higher cost. The other reason is that on the Soldotna there’s more property purchases required and up on the Kenai side there’s none.”
He says that project is a little ahead of schedule and may begin in early 2017.
Tom Schmid, Beaver Loop Road Project Manager with the DOT, says some residents were concerned about their properties changing.
Schmid: “When they’ve been manicuring everything right up next to the pavement and they have to come to terms with the right of way is 50 feet wide or whatever and doesn’t go all the way up there. It’s always a challenge but they understand. We clear the right of way not just to clear the right of way but it helps reduce maintenance and operations, it helps increase visibility for moose and side-streets when people come out to access the road.”
He added that residents of the area are also concerned that the wider roadway may cause an increase in speed through the neighborhoods.
Once the Beaver Loop Road Project is completed, the City of Kenai has volunteered to take over maintenance and responsibility of the road.
Attendees to the open house provided comments on both projects which will be reviewed by the project teams.
