Pavement coming to Deshka Landing

WILLOW -- It is becoming a recurring theme for Valley residents who have found their piece of the proverbial pie. Purchase a lakefront piece of property, build your dream home and sit back and enjoy the quiet -- until it's interrupted by the unremitting sound of vehicles heading to recreate in your backyard.

Willow-area residents enjoy an envious proximity to some of Alaska's best fishing streams, rivers and lakes. But for some, that blessing is a double-edged sword made sharper by the increased growth of the Valley.

Neil Sullivan, a Willow resident, spoke at a recent borough meeting about the increased traffic he confronts on a daily basis from his home on Michigan Street, a route commonly used to access the privately operated Deshka Landing launch facility.

"There's over a thousand cars a day that go by there any given weekend," Sullivan told the assembly. "They're going to Deshka Landing."

That's despite an alternative access route to Deshka Landing set to be paved by the state's Department of Transportation this summer, Sullivan said. He explained that the alternative access route isn't generally used by either local residents or visitors because it's a lengthy drive.

"Deshka Landing Road's been in for quite a few years," Sullivan said. "Any given day, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, you can drive down that road and you're not going to see the traffic. Why? Because it's the longest way to get to Deshka Landing. It is the very longest way."

While the access route set to be paved by DOT may be longer than the commonly used route, which heads down Long Lake Road, connects with Michigan Street and Crystal Lake Road and reaches Deshka Landing by use of Mishap Avenue, distance was not the primary method in selecting an access route to be paved.

The Willow road service area board of supervisors, as well as borough administration, felt it would be better to try to retrain the public to use the slightly longer, less populated access route in favor of keeping traffic levels lower in primarily residential areas.

"I think everyone wants the non-resident traffic on those wide roads," said assembly member Kelly Lankford Ladere at the meeting. "Mr. Sullivan has a good point, but I think that we're doing the best we can to resolve it."

And time is already counting down toward a resolution. As preparations are made for the state project, the work will move ahead on the borough's paving project, set to be finished by July 1. The assembly, last week, approved unanimously a request to appropriate $60,000 to the Willow road service area to cover the cost of adding an additional 6,000 feet to the paving project on Michigan Street. That appropriation comes on the heels of a decision to pave 4,000 feet of Michigan Street, which was an add-on to a project to pave Shirley Lake Drive. All the tack-ons, explained Jim Swing, the borough's director of public works, are benefits stemming from a low bid by Pruhs Construction.

"We had a very good price from the contractor," Swing said. "We'll never get it less expensive."

Meanwhile, work on DOT's paving project -- the paving of Willow Creek Parkway, a portion of Crystal Lake Road, Mishap Avenue, Gomer Road and Deshka Landing Road -- will likely begin by August, depending on when road crews finish other borough projects scheduled for earlier in the season.

By the list of roads to be paved, it may appear the borough is slowly paving the shorter, commonly used access route to the landing despite the state's paving project. But Swing said the complete route will not be paved -- a portion of the route will remain in gravel. The proposed pavement will serve the area's estimated 800 homes and the borough hopes to divert all Deshka Landing access traffic to the longer route.

"That was the intent of the road service area board -- to have a little bit of gravel there so people would get used to driving on the other road," Swing said. "Whether it will work or not, I can't say. Sometimes old habits are hard to break."