A highway worker clears a ditch on Highway 395 as multi-colored conduit snakes past him.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
Crews are starting to button up stretches of Main Street for the winter as they wind down the work that has snarled traffic through Minden and Gardnerville for the last two months.
After taking a break for the holiday weekend, work installing conduit along the highway will resume Monday and last until Dec. 3, according to NVRoads.com.
As of Tuesday night, workers had finished almost to Gilman Avenue from 1st Street as they approach Waterloo Lane.
Gardnerville Town Board Chairman Mike Henningsen observed on Tuesday that while workers had connected a basin under Gardnerville Station, it doesn’t appear they’ve done any work on softening the S-Curve. Trucks have difficulty making the turn without going up on the sidewalk in that location.
This fall’s work is in preparation for repaving the highway next spring, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.
On the other end of the S-Curve it appears that Gardnerville resident Lauren Neumann has been successful in getting the no left turn sign taken down at the intersection with Toler Lane.
Neumann started a petition in June to allow left turns onto the road that serves Gardnerville Elementary School after she was fined $138. The warning sign on the other side of the highway was barely visible due to a tree, and residents pretty regularly ignored it.
Gardnerville Town Board members voted to remove the signs after agreeing that they couldn’t even say why left turns were banned a decade ago.
Neumann wasn’t the only resident questioning road signs in Carson Valley.
On Monday, Johnson Lane residents questioned why the speed limit above Vicky was 45 mph, according to resident Rick Defressine.
“People act like it’s a drag strip,” he said in an email to The R-C on Tuesday evening.
He said a neighbor looked it up in the code, which said the speed limit was supposed to be 35 mph, which was brought to the county’s attention and changed this week.
The county will be closing East Valley Road starting Monday between Fremont and Grandview to conduct drainage work.
The road will be closed 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Dec. 1.
