Big Lake examines port road

BIG LAKE — What is the best way to mitigate impacts on Big Lake from Port MacKenzie and the Knik Arm Bridge?

It seems one good road could do it — one that connects the Knik area to the Parks Highway, but keeps big trucks out of downtown.

Community members and consultants met at a local church last week to start trying to figure out a good route for that road, but it’s a tough nut to crack.

“There’s a lot of community in between that point and that point,” said John McPherson with HDR Alaska, pointing at a map.

He and his colleagues working on a $250,000 state grant to produce a community impact assessment came armed with a sheaf of maps. One they called the spaghetti map includes just about every way to get from the port to the highway, including the existing route of taking Burma Road to where it connects with South Big Lake Road.

“We’re stepping back, trying to take a fresh look and see what is better for this community,” McPherson said.

But when you start layering constraints on top of those wide-open maps, the corridors narrow to a few wide corridors.

Those constraints include wetlands — where it’s difficult to build — and private land — where it can be expensive to buy right of way. There were also lakes and parks — which people tend to not like to give up for a highway — and developed parcels, which are usually expensive.

The corridors left after tossing out the wetlands and other areas wind up being relatively wide, with lots of possibilities for twists and turns the highway could take.

“We want to hear what’s important inside those corridors,” McPherson said. “Hopefully, we can find a route or routes within those corridors that will avoid some of the things that you feel are important.”

Chris Beck of Agnew Beck Consulting illustrated the point by saying a highway could go right through downtown or swing around the outside of it.

“Those could both be possible within that corridor,” he said.

Ken Walsh, who was attending the meeting as an audience member but who has been working with consultants from the earlier phases, said the process has kind of evolved quickly into a study for a route for a bypass road.

“The bypass road was one of several considerations of impacts we were going to see in the next few years,” he said.

And a route study is fine, he said, but “at some point we’re going to have to look at other impacts besides just the road.”

Rep. Mark Neuman, who represents the area in the stare Legislature but was also just another audience member, said he expects “to see movement” on the Knik Arm Bridge in 2014.

“The route along the railroad spur will be most feasible once the bridge goes through,” Neuman said. “This is traffic that is not going to stop in Big Lake.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.