Street swap proposal under consideration

Carson residents cruising Washington Street between Carson Street and Ormsby Boulevard, are actually traversing State Route 511.

Residents living on Edmonds Drive are not on a state route, but actually on a city street.

The arrangement doesn't exactly make sense, said Carson City Street Operations Manager John Flansberg.

Carson City and the Nevada Department of Transportation are negotiating a street swap which would give the city control of several streets in west Carson, while transfering maintenance of some east Carson streets to the state.

History and land ownership dictate who owns a road, and many residential streets in west Carson City are maintained by NDOT.

"We want to take over the west side because it just makes sense," Flansberg said. "It makes sense in the overall picture for Carson City to maintain streets in west Carson that have more residential traffic."

The trade includes Carson City taking over maintenance, for example, on Winnie Lane between Carson Street and Ash Canyon Road. State Route 512, also known as King Street and Kings Canyon Road, would be under city maintenance from Division Street to Kings Canyon Creek. The city would inherit about five and a half miles of road.

NDOT would receive about four miles of road which includes South Graves Lane, South Edmonds Drive and Fairview Drive. The swap to NDOT would create a loop spanning the east side from North Carson Street to South Carson Street.

Miles of maintained roads constitute 25 percent of the equation for distributing the state road tax, but Flansberg said the swap shouldn't affect the amount of money Carson City receives from the tax.

Flansberg said residents would see a change in service such as snow plowing and street sweeping. He said the city would consider many of the swapped streets as main roads. Under NDOT control, he said, the streets fall in snow plowing priority behind Highways 50 and 395. The city would consider them main roads and they could get plowed sooner.

NDOT would have a convenient maintenance loop when it came to plowing. Flansberg said the city also has different street sweeping standards and the residential areas would probably be swept more often.

Flansberg said the process, in its preliminary stages, will take up to two years to hammer out details. The two-year time frame is partially due to NDOT's schedule of road maintenance for next year which includes some of the streets in the swap.

The city and NDOT also need to evaluate the roads to look at road conditions, drainage situations, asphalt replacement and right-of-way issues. Depending on the outcome of the evaluations and overall conditions of the streets there could be a swap of money involved, but that determination is further down the road, Flansberg said.

Streets to be exchanged from the Nevada Department of Transportaiton to Carson City include:

Winnie Lane from Carson Street to Ash Canyon Road

Ash Canyon Road from Winnie Lane to Ormsby Boulevard

Ormsby Boulevard from Ash Canyon Road to Kings Canyon Road

Kings Canyon Road from Ormsby Boulevard to Kings Canyon Creek

King Street from Ormsby Boulevard to Division Street

Division Street from King Street to W. Fifth Street

W. Fifth Street from Carson Street to Division Street

Washington Street from Carson Street to Ormsby Boulevard

Streets to be exchanged from Carson City to NDOT include:

Fairview Drive from Carson Street to S. Edmonds Drive

S. Edmonds Drive from Fairview Drive to S. Graves Lane

S. Graves Lane from S. Edmonds Drive to Highway 50 East