Kingsbury Grade highway work done

Highway work on Kingsbury Grade is finished for the season, according to the contractor who conducted a major repaving of the main route between Caron Valley and Lake Tahoe.

Q&D Construction Vice President Chris Barrett said there was a little bit of clean-up work the company completed last week.

“We had to go back in at TRPA direction and fix some of the rip rap, but there is no construction this year,” Barett said. “You are done.”

Two closures of the Grade in May and September 2014 were all that was needed to complete the four-mile project on Kingsbury, one less than was originally anticipated.

“It was a real partnership between us and the community up there,” Barrett said. “Everybody was so cooperative, that we were able to get out of their hair early.”

As originally envisioned, the $14.9 million project would have been finished on July 4 this year. But due to the closures last year, Q&D was able to wrap up work last fall.

According to the Nevada Department of Transportation, the project required excavation of nearly 24,000 cubic yards of old road and placement of 21,000 tons of new asphalt. Nearly 6,000 linear feet of storm drainpipe were installed as one part of the project’s drainage improvements to enhance roadside drainage and Tahoe basin water quality. More than 8,000 linear feet of curb and gutter work have also been put in place.

Kingsbury is one of Western Nevada’s oldest mountain roads, having been built in 1860 by Kingsbury and McDonald for $585,000.