Borough assembly seeks state aid to improve dangerous intersection

WASILLA — Ambulance lights Monday night amid two smashed-up cars at the intersection of Lucille Street and Seldon Road were the final straw for Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Colver.

“That’s a very dangerous intersection with a high accident rate,“ Colver said. “People are getting hurt and we can’t ignore that any longer.”

Although those involved in the accident were uninjured beyond a slightly sore shoulder, Alaska Department of Transportation statistics on the intersection reveal that of the 59 accidents recorded there between 1999 and 2008, two resulted in serious, incapacitating injuries and 19 in less serious injuries.

The other 38 accidents involved property damage only, either to vehicles or nearby objects such as guardrails.

Colver said he believes that if Valley voters had realized how dangerous this intersection is when the $32.5 million road bond proposal appeared on the Oct. 5 ballot, more of them might have agreed to approve it — or even showed up at the polls.

A little more than 18 percent of the borough’s 58,583 registered voters cast ballots when faced with a total of three bond issues, assembly and school board races, and whether a strong mayor should be running the show.

The only borough-wide bond issue approved — passed by about 500 votes — was a $34 million package to replace school roofs, upgrade fire alarm systems and clear asbestos out of aging school buildings, among other maintenance projects.

So now it’s up to the Legislature to show mercy on the fastest-growing borough in the state and help finance the $1.5 million Lucille-Seldon safety upgrade, Colver said.

“I’m going to keep pushing for funding to get that improved,” said Colver, whose assembly district includes that intersection. “That’s my No. 1 concern. We’re got to make it safe.”

Colver wasted no time in having Brad Sworts — the borough’s manager of transportation for the Planning and Land Use Department — draft a memorandum to the borough clerk emphasizing the need for action.

“Improvements to the Lucille Street-Seldon Road Intersection have long been needed and a project has now been included in the Assembly’s State Legislative Priorities document,” Sworts’ Dec. 2 memo states. “One of the improvements included in the borough’s project would lower the hill on Lucille Street that currently impairs sight distance to the intersection with Seldon Road for northbound traffic.”

The DOT project also would convert the intersection from a two-way stop for those on Seldon to a four-way stop and install a flashing red beacon overhead to ensure drivers understood what was required of them.

Sworts said Friday the fact that several school buses pass through that intersection every week day on their way to and from three nearby schools makes the improvements even more critical.

Jeffrey Norberg Jr., of Eagle River, couldn’t agree more. He was behind one of those school buses Monday at about 5 p.m. while on his way to drop off a friend after basketball practice at the AT&T Sports Center on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“I’d hardly ever been on that part of the road before. I was taking a shortcut because traffic was so bad on the highway by the sports center,” the 18-year-old Valley Christian School senior explained Friday. “I was heading west on Seldon and was maybe a minute from my friend’s house. When I got to Lucille, I stopped at the stop sign, but I thought it was a four-way stop because I had just passed another intersection that was a four-way.”

Norberg said he was waiting his turn to cross the intersection and noticed a car coming up the hill on his right. Thinking that the 2007 Chrysler Sebring driven by 43-year-old David Ralph was going to stop before proceeding south up the hill on Lucille, Norberg pulled forward into the intersection, smashing his recently purchased 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix into the left side of Ralph’s car between the driver door and the backseat door.

“I was so surprised, I jumped out of my car to ask him why he didn’t stop and then realized it was my fault,” Norberg said. “I felt kind of stupid. My dad told me I was lucky I didn’t cross a second before that because I would have run right into that guy’s door and could have hurt him.”

He was cited for failure to yield to a vehicle in an intersection, fined $160, and slapped with four penalty points on his driver’s license. He already had four points from rolling a car on the North Eagle River exit in February of last year.

Both cars were towed from the scene.

But neither his father nor Ralph were angry with him.

“When I went to pick him up, I was surprised by how confusing the intersection was and how poorly lit it was,” Norberg Sr. said Thursday from his Eagle River home. “Cars do come streaming down that hill. But I’m hoping he’s learned a lesson about waiting to make sure the intersection is clear, even if you think you have the right of way.”

Ralph, who was on his way from his home off Schrock Road to his teaching job at Charter College in Wasilla at the time of the accident, said he’s been trying to think of solutions for that intersection for years.

“I have an 18-year-old son, too,” said the father of five. “I wanted to tell that kid what I tell my own kids. Sometimes you just have to have some close calls to make you realize how dangerous driving can be and to be more aware of what you’re doing.”

Sworts said the intersection used to be a four-way stop, but when cars continued to slide down the Lucille hill and run through the stop sign in the winter, the Lucille stop signs were quickly removed.

“That’s why we need to lower the grade of that hill first so cars will be able to stop even when it’s icy,” Sworts said. “If you look at the guardrail, you can see it’s been mangled and replaced several times from people sliding through the intersection.”

He added that even if the state agrees to fund the project for next year, construction wouldn’t get underway until at least spring 2012.

“We have such a short season, we have to get a lot done in a short amount of time,” Sworts said. “But this one is long overdue.”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.