This roadwork season will be a doozy

There’s going to be a lot of roadwork should winter ever loosen its grip on Carson Valley.

Surveyors have been making their way up and down Main Street in Gardnerville for the better part of the year to prepare for the repaving of Highway 395 between First Street in Minden and Waterloo Lane.

That’s just the main event. Work on the highway south of Leviathan Mine Road is also scheduled for this year that will see the extension of the acceleration lane northbound up the hill from Holbrook.

The state is also planning on the first speed limit increase on a state highway in Douglas County since the repeal of the double nickel limit in 1995. Parts of the stretch through the Pine Nuts will go from 55 to 65 mph, according to the state.

Work won’t be limited to state highways, with the county planning to go to bid on its section of Muller Lane Parkway this spring. There are still some lengths of that road left to build, but the county’s segment is one of the longer ones.

With the exception of a mishap back in October that saw a Gardnerville waterline break in downtown, the Valley was blessedly without much in the way of roadwork last year.

We know that smoothing out Main Street through Gardnerville is just the first phase of that work.

The work will eventually soften the S-curve through town that sometimes sees a semi hop the curb and connect drainage lines to the basin under the parking lot of Gardnerville Station. That will fulfill that property’s real promise to reduce flooding in downtown and allow for the parking lot to be paved, finally.

Despite the issues road work poses for our businesses in town, not having to swerve around the growing number of potholes will help everyone, particularly the 20,000 vehicles that use the route every day.