Nome’s main community road will be getting a facelift from the Alaska Department of Transportation. DOT recently announced millions of dollars will be going towards resurfacing the city’s Front Street.

“So this is a road that is maintained by the state, by DOT, and so we nominated it for this funding [CTP].”

– Caitlin Frye

According to Caitlin Frye, a spokesperson for DOT’s Northern Region, the Front Street project in Nome received $5,550,000 in Community Transportation Program (CTP) funding.

Although details on the scope of the project have not been announced yet, Nome Joint Utilities’ Ken Morton anticipates more than just the road itself will be repaired and resurfaced.

“Well certainly the roadway surface itself. They’ll probably go down, maybe a foot and restore the structural section. And then they’ll probably just do spot improvements on the sidewalk. I don’t see them doing a wholesale replacement of the sidewalk, curb, and gutter…that’s my sense.”

DOT plans to reach out to the Nome community with more details on the Front Street project as it moves forward in the process.

As it stands now, Frye says the construction timeline for this local project could take at least a few years to complete.

“Now that this project has been funded by CTP it will be added into our Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, to our STIP, we call it. So that means it will begin the process of the environmental work and the design sometime between 2020 and 2023.”

According to a press release from the Department of Transportation, the latest round of CTP projects, including Nome’s Front Street, are scheduled for design over the next two years with construction slated to begin sometime in 2023 or later.

Meanwhile, a separate Bering Street construction and maintenance project in Nome could be put out for bid sometime this month, according to Frye.

Image at top: Nome’s Front Street, a common thoroughfare for the city’s taxis. Photo: David Dodman, KNOM file (2017).