Ice House Road improvements may expand
Just as construction is about to begin on a 7.13 mile section of Ice House Road with a $4.4 million grant awarded last year, El Dorado County Community Development Agency has received notice of a potential second grant award of $6.75 million for phase two of the project.
The second grant would continue the work on Ice House Road for an additional 17.5 miles. Final grant scoping and approval of phase two is scheduled to take place this summer based on updated cost estimates.
The purpose of the Ice House Road Project is to improve and widen Ice House Road and provide safety enhancements including signing, striping and delineation. These grants are provided through the Federal Lands Access Program , which was established to improve transportation facilities that provide access to, are adjacent to, or are located within federal lands. The county will provide matching funds of approximately 11.5 percent, plus county staff oversight costs.
Ice House Road provides a connection for forest visitors to access the Rubicon Trail, Desolation Wilderness, Ice House Reservoir, Union Valley Reservoir, Loon Lake and various attractions within the Crystal Basin Recreation Area in the Eldorado National Forest.
Ice House Road Pavement Rehabilitation phase one will begin the first week of June, and will provide resurfacing, restoration, and rehabilitation to 7.13 miles of roadway from the junction of Wentworth Springs Road to the end of the pavement near Loon Lake. Traffic delays are expected, and will be limited to a 30-minute maximum for the duration of the project.
Well there goes the neighborhood. I am all for basic repair projects, as I haul firewood with my trailer on this road 20+ times a year. But these other improvements with further encourage tourists to an already increasingly over crowded area.
“But it’s MY National Forest!!”
-tahoebluewire
The US Forest Service, BLM and California State Parks and other States in the West have an updated mission for this century. To develop their lands to generate revenue. Absolutely true. It is happening wherever you see forest‘thinning’ projects. At Washoe Meadows where there is now an ‘improved parking lot’, soon to follow will be a fee area. The same at Tahoe Mountain. There are some groups that are tracking this trend nationally. You can see public lands (BLM) now charging illegal fees all over the West.
“these other improvements with further encourage tourists to an already increasingly over crowded area.”
“You can see public lands (BLM) now charging illegal fees all over the West.”
So Tahoebluewire, are you saying that the majority of the actual owners (taxpayers) should according to you NOT have any easier access because it would overcrowd a place that YOU feel is already “overcrowded”?
And then you feel making those that actually do make use of an area like that shouldn’t have to shoulder a little more responsibility of the cost of paying for the infrastructure that goes with it? You feel it’s solely the responsibility of a majority of taxpayers who DON’T use those areas to recreate in to shoulder that burden?
Huh.
I drove Ice House road on a weekly basis in a garbage truck picking up the trash at the campgrounds for very many years. Beautiful area!
Now if only there would be road repair here on So. Shore! Fix our local roads! Old Long Skiis