Construction of improvements along the Chilkoot River Corridor is on hold until 2019, state park ranger Travis Russell said this week.

The delay is attributed at least in part to a federal grant request that would boost project funding to $1.6 million and make additional improvements to the mile-long road straddling the river.

“The project’s original scope included road improvements. We’re trying to expand that as far as we can now that we’re responsible for the whole corridor,” said Rys Miranda, chief of design and construction for Alaska State Parks. “This is probably our best opportunity to do that.”

Parks is seeking a $1 million grant through the federal Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, but to qualify for the money the state must hold unexpended project funds as a match, Miranda said.

The Division of Parks acquired the mile-long road from the state Department of Transportation after the project was planned.

Parks received $1 million for the project through an Alaska Legislative appropriation in 2011 and a plan for the site was developed by 2014. Aimed at improving safety for bears and people, the project includes a pedestrian pathway, three bear-viewing decks on earthen embankments and three bus pull-outs.

About $376,000 has been spent to date from the initial appropriation.

Tour operator Dan Egolf said the delay is a disappointment, considering the time that’s passed since the project was funded.

“Part of the money was for the (park entrance) gate that everybody feels is an impediment. It takes up room for parking,” Egolf said. “The flow of traffic to the lake is an issue and the gate makes it ever worse.”

Egolf has operated tours along the river since 1985. He said some practices at Chilkoot have improved safety, including one adopted in 2011 to have vehicles pull over to the road’s hill side so pedestrians needn’t walk around vehicles.

But management hasn’t kept up with numbers of visitors, especially after a dozen or more female and juvenile brown bears started showing up there in the mid-1990s, he said. “We’ve seen a lot more use since 1985, impacting the experience for everybody.”

Egolf favors improvements originally recommended, including a separate pedestrian bridge upstream of the road bridge and improved parking on either side of the bridge. Sightseers crowd the road bridge when bears are in the area, creating a safety hazard, he said.

There’s never been a consensus on what changes should be made between the road and the river, Egolf said.

Richard Buck, a 43-year Lutak Road resident, said he is encouraged that the project appears to be getting more funding.

“I go up to the river almost every evening in the fall. It’s a mess sometimes, an absolute mess,” Buck said. Determining a long-term solution to crowding along the river corridor isn’t a simple equation, he said. “Another way of looking at it is if you build a better road, more people will come.”

Restricting road traffic to buses, as is done in some national parks, isn’t an idea he likes, but something like it may have to be adopted eventually, he said.

The Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation, a local non-profit, has funded roadside panels providing interpretive and safety information along the corridor.

The foundation wrote to the Division of Parks asking about the status of the project May 17.

“Is there a firm construction start date and project finish date? If not, written assurances that the money and the project won’t be permanently postponed with the monies eventually disappearing into the general parks budget, would be appreciated,” wrote foundation president Pam Randles.

“One million dollars went farther in 2013 than it will in 2019. So the longer the project is put off, the less of it can be done,” she wrote.