Summer projects include 15 blocks of alley paving

Four miles of chip sealing, 28 blocks of overlay, 15 blocks of alley paving and a few thousand feet of road striping and safety marking will be the sum total of this summer’s street improvements in Kalispell.

It’s all covered by the $568,700 that the city budgeted for the 2009-10 fiscal year, which began last summer and will wrap up June 30. Budget Resource Manager Terri Loudermilk said the money comes from the state of Montana’s gas-tax appropriation to Kalispell.

That’s above and beyond an overall street budget of just over $2.3 million covering personnel, equipment, traffic signs and signals, and $6,000 in pavement maintenance.

And $339,500 in federal stimulus money, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help pay for yet another project — a major overlay of 11th Street East from Main to Woodland Avenue that will accompany a water main upgrade. Loudermilk said the project will go out to bid sometime in the next month.

Street Superintendent Leonard Hogan outlined the full list of summer project that will be put out to bid:

n Chip sealing — Everything south of the Kelly Road area; Conrad Hill, which is Second Street East from Woodland Avenue to Woodland Park Drive; at least a portion of Fifth Avenue East; Parkway Drive where Public Works crews worked on a utility main.

n Overlay — All of 11th Street from Woodland Avenue to Eighth Avenue West, in addition to the water-main repair area noted above; Third Avenue EN from Center Street to Idaho Street.

n Alley paving — A couple blocks near Hedges School and a couple more near Peterson Elementary that have been requested for several years, three blocks remaining to be done in East-North Kalispell, and a section in West-North Kalispell by Idaho Street and the railroad tracks.

n Striping — This will take in the whole city where road markings are worn out, particularly near schools, along Meridian Road and First Avenues East and West. There will be 22,888 feet of double-yellow line, 10,000 square feet of words, symbols and crosswalks, and other areas of 8-inch and 4-inch white striping.