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Gaswell and Ciechanski roads getting traffic signals in K-Beach Road update

Road work around the Kenai Peninsula did not wait for summer to officially kick off before beginning this year. A stretch along the Kenai Spur has already been resurfaced and striped, but work on the eastern section of Kalifornsky Beach Road is more involved. 

“So we’re installing two new traffic signals, one at the intersection of Gaswell Road, and one at Ciechanski," said the Alaska Department of Transportation’s Shannon McCarthy. "And we will be upgrading the signals at the intersection of K-Beach Road with Bridge Access and Poppy Lane.”

That’s in addition to resurfacing the road, which was last done not quite 15 years ago.

“It does depend on volumes, but 15 years is a pretty good length of time. For instance, the Glenn Highway here in Anchorage it has high volume and a mixture of high speed traffic that's wearing studded tires, so that causes it to wear out much faster," she said. "So the lifespan of a lane on the Glenn Highway let's say is seven years, so 15 years for a lower volume road is pretty good.”

And though the road has held up reasonably well, McCarthy says demand is high enough to call for the upgrades, which are paid for largely through federal funds.

“So this is a federal funded project. So a majority of the money from our federal highway allocation. So it has worked its way through the system," she said. "Federal project have to follow very rigorous set of standards and it takes time to go through those So this project has been a long time in coming.”

The price tag is about $8.7 million.

According to the DOT’s project recorded update line, driveway and side-road approaches and curbs are currently being installed in preparation for paving.

There will be no change in speed limit for this section of K-Beach Road after the work is done, but during construction there will be occasional delays and pilot cars to follow.