By PAUL BALCERAK

Staff writer

As the skies clear and greenery starts popping up from planter boxes and yards across Central Kitsap, so, too, will new life spring from the concrete jungle.

Kitsap County Public Works has a laundry list of road projects in store for the upcoming season and drivers in Silverdale will want to circle at least one that’s likely to cause slowdowns.

“It is a little heavier,” public works employee Tina Nelson said of the workload this spring. Nelson is public works’ senior program manager for engineering.

Unlike in years past, the department is facing two big ongoing projects separate from the usual rounds of maintenance and repairs: the Waaga Way extension project and repair work associated with the December 2007 floods.

Fortunately, neither of those projects will adversely affect traffic more than they already have. Unfortunately, they’re both likely to continue into the 2009 construction season.

The following is a list of some of the bigger projects the department will be working on this spring:

• Silverdale Way at Anderson Hill Road

Public Works will be installing a new traffic signal at the intersection of Silverdale Way and Anderson Hill Road and drivers should expect to wait.

“That will have some traffic effects, absolutely,” Nelson said.

The department expects to start taking bids for the project on Tuesday and expects construction to begin sometime in April. The project is scheduled to take 50 days, or about 10 weeks.

• Waaga Way

extension

One of the most anticipated road projects in the county will finally be breaking ground this year — at least that’s the plan right now.

The department expects to start advertising for bids sometime in May, though no specific date has been pinned down yet.

“It’s gonna be at least two months after we open the bids that we would be opening to construction,” Nelson said.

The lag time between the bidding process and the start of construction on the extension project is expected to take a little longer than the average road project, too. Construction has a “late summer or early fall” starting tag at the moment, but public works is planning on shrink wrapping the project during the winter.

“Because of the area, it only makes sense to not do a whole lot of work over the winter; it would cost a lot more to do that,” Nelson said.

The area in question mostly consists of wetland at the moment.

Work for the entire project is tentatively expected to end in late 2009.

• Chico Way Bridge

Demolition work on the old bridge has already begun, but new construction is “still a way out,” Nelson said.

“We weren’t planning on replacing the Chico Way Bridge,” she said. “That’s gonna add a lot of work.”

Public works is expecting a crane to be delivered next week that will remove girders and other large sections of the bridge out of Chico Creek. It’s expected to be removing debris for about two weeks and then the project will temporarily freeze.

“Once the bridge is removed … nothing’s gonna happen until we have a design complete,” Nelson said.

It’s not certain when design work could or will be done, but work could start in late summer, according to the county’s Road Report Web site.

“It’s not a normal project where you set a schedule and stick with that,” Nelson said. “The idea is to get it done as soon as we can get it done.”

The upside, she said, is the demolition work being done now will ultimately shorten the time needed to construct a new bridge. That time span is currently estimated at nine months.

• General work

Road repairs and upkeep that are needed every year also will be going on county-wide, but none are expected to snarl traffic too much.

“The bulk of our traffic tie-ups will be with our asphalt overlay program,” County Road Superintendent Don Shultz said.

Several culvert replacement and repair projects also are in the works, but no major projects are planned.

Keep an eye on the road

Road updates are available year round on Kitsap County’s Road Report Web site: www.kitsapgov.com/pw/roadwork.htm.