COEUR d’ALENE — A piece of road in Coeur d’Alene that was being maintained by the state will revert to the city’s care this year, according to an agreement signed Tuesday by council members.

Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive, inside the city limits and formerly a section of Interstate 90, has been under the care of the state highway department since the 1990s, but council members agreed this week to take over ownership and maintenance of the 1.3 miles of roadway through an agreement with the state.

In exchange, the state would pay the city $840,000 to accept jurisdiction of the road and right-of-way from approximately Silver Beach to Sherman Avenue, and the strip of land on both sides of the road including waterfront near Silver Beach Marina.

The $840,000 would be used to refurbish the road, upgrade the traffic signal at the Sherman Avenue intersection and put in a bike lane, Tim Martin, director of the city’s streets and engineering department, said.

The state would continue to maintain the Potlatch Hill bridge and a slide area near the bridge, Martin said.

Estimated winter maintenance costs to plow, sand and de-ice the small chunk of road that skirts the north side of The Coeur d’Alene Resort golf course — a former Potlatch mill site — are difficult to ascertain, Martin said.

“Because winters are what they are,” he said. “... We don’t anticipate our plow times to go up any.”

Painting the roadway stripes would likely cost $1,000 annually, he said.

“We spend about $1,300 a lane mile in asphalt maintenance, whether it’s cracked sealing or just overall patching of the road,” he said.

The cost of an overlay on the piece of road will likely cost around $500,000, Martin said. The figure was used to determine how much the Idaho Transportation Department should pay the city to take over jurisdiction.

Because the state maintains the road to Higgens Point — the former interstate highway’s intersection with the current I-90 route — the state five years ago offered to turn the entire 5-plus-mile stretch over to the city, but the city declined.

“We struggled as staff and council to make that pencil out,” Martin said. “It just wasn’t going to work.”

An agreement between the state and the Eastside Highway District calls for paying the highway district, which maintains Sunnyside and Yellowstone Trail roads that join Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive, $2.7 million to take over jurisdiction of the remaining 4 miles to Higgens Point.

Although it has not been officially accepted, Eastside supervisor John Pankratz said his district and the state have been negotiating the agreement for several years before coming to acceptable terms.

“I have no reason to believe the board won’t sign it,” Pankratz said.

Pankratz said his plows frequently travel Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive in winter on their way to maintain roads in the rest of the district.

“It makes sense to be under local jurisdiction,” he said.

Taking over the maintenance won’t increase taxes, but it will increase funding for road maintenance that the district receives from the state, he said.