On Monday, state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities crews and equipment -- including six trucks, a grader, a compactor and an excavator -- will get to work fixing North Fork Road's worst "soft spots," which created ruts more than 16 inches deep earlier this spring and made the road impassible for school buses.

"Basically, our objective here is to try to get the areas that cause problems during breakup. This is just a Band-Aid but we're going to go treat the worst of the soft spots," said DOT area supervisor Carl High.

High plans to have a crew of 10 working on North Fork Road for about a month, laying geotechnical fabric and up to a foot and a half of gravel on top of the most troubled sections of roadway. After that, the crew will move on to Ohlson Mountain Road and spend two weeks doing the same thing there. All of the work is expected to be completed before the end of September.

The improvements come after fed-up neighbors complained to DOT officials in May about the worsening conditions on North Fork Road and convinced Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, to write a letter to DOT Commissioner Leo von Scheben in support of prioritizing improvements for it.

On July 20, a group of five officials -- including von Scheben and Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Dave Carey -- came to Homer and spent a day touring state roads in the area, including North Fork Road, Ohlson Mountain Road, East End Road, Greer Road, East Hill Road and Skyline Drive.

"We're always getting input and we heard the complaints that came in on North Fork. I was aware of the school bus problems and the commissioner was interested because we had the complaints," said DOT Maintenance and Operations Chief Michael Coffey, who went along on the tour.

Four days after the tour, $100,000 to fix North Fork Road and another $60,000 for Ohlson Mountain Road was secured, coming from a pot of DOT maintenance money leftover from other projects that were completed under budget, said Coffey.

"What we do from time to time is we scrub old projects and we're able to come up with some additional money. It was good timing. We were in the process of doing our regular scrubbing of old money and we know there's definitely an immediate need on North Fork Road," he said.

"This is really great news," said North Fork Road resident Patrick Houlihan, who operates a business out of his home with his wife, Susan. "It's a step in the right direction. We're going to need more in the future to save everybody's car from getting torn up but I'm glad to hear it. It sounds like they've responded to our pleas for help."

The projects will be done as quickly as possible, forgoing the normal process of public notice and public comment, said High.

"The season is getting pretty short here. We want to get a jump on it as quick as we can," he said.

The fixes to North Fork Road and Ohlson Mountain Road are temporary, expected to last three to five years. A more permanent fix for North Fork Road would be much more costly, likely involve relocating portions of the road, and Ohlson Mountain Road really needs a "full blown construction project," said High.

"We didn't get as much money was we'd like but we're going to do the best we can with the money we have to work with," he said.

Aaron Selbig can be reached at aaron.selbig@homernews.com.