A bypass for Wasilla? Maybe

WASILLA — With all the transportation projects on the near-term horizon — Parks Highway, Glenn Highway and Knik-Goose Bay Road are all getting fixes, just to name a few — it can sometimes be hard to keep an eye on the long term.

The long term is where the Wasilla Bypass is now. Actually, scratch that; the state prefers to call it the Parks Highway Alternative Corridor. It’s an idea that’s been bandied about for decades.

“The possibility of bypassing Wasilla by routing the Parks Highway around Wasilla has been a controversial topic for a number of years. Discussion of an alternative highway corridor was met with stiff resistance in the 1970s and again in the early 1990s,” says the project’s website.

Murph O’Brien of HDR Alaska is serving as consultant for the state on the project, and he remembers those days from his time at the Alaska Department of Transportation.

“We got 600 comments on the Environmental Impact Statement, all negative,” he said at a meeting Tuesday of the Wasilla Planning Commission.

But with the Parks Highway exceeding capacity through the city, with truck traffic running to Fairbanks and the North Slope forced to go through there and with popular sentiment in many quarters repeating the slogan from that famous bumper sticker — “Lord, help me get through Wasilla” — maybe the picture has changed.

“There are people who would love to use an alternative corridor through the southern reaches of Wasilla,” O’Brien said.

There are even some on the planning commission. Commissioner Jessica Dean said she was very happy to see the state was looking at this idea. Just where that route would go is a mystery. O’Brien walked the commission through the process being used to decide where it potentially could go.

The way it works is planners map out the area. They find spots that are developed and spots that have wetlands. Those spots are marked on a spectrum from blue to yellow to red based on how expensive it would be to either purchase the properties and the buildings on them or to fill in or bridge the wetlands. Blue spots are easy. Red spots are hard.

Then, they trace a line through the area, trying to maximize blue and minimize the red.

A map contained in O’Brien’s presentation showed numerous routes, some skirting around Wasilla starting at Seward Meridian Parkway or Herning Road, others starting as far back as Hyer Road. Some terminate as close to Wasilla as Vine Road, others as far out as Big Lake Road.

Of course, while all this planning is certainly welcome, it might give a false sense of how far the project has progressed, O’Brien said. The state is still trying to officially decide whether a corridor is warranted. The findings of that study will be presented at an open house scheduled for Aug 28 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the fire station at Lucille Street and Swanson Avenue in Wasilla.

To give a preview, as far as traffic projections go, he said it looks like a bypass is warranted.

One of the big factors out there that could change that picture is the Knik Arm Crossing. A bridge letting truck traffic stay off the Parks all the way to Houston, potentially, could draw traffic out of the mix.

But, O’Brien said, the state has looked at the bridge and worked it into its projection.

“It shows that whether or not you build a bridge you need a bypass,” O’Brien said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.