Borough gives green light to Bogard Road ‘red’ route

PALMER — Local residents packed the Palmer Train Depot Tuesday as the Mat-Su Borough Assembly unanimously chose a route to extend Bogard Road from 49th State Street to the Glenn Highway.

The route, dubbed the “red” route on Borough maps and documents, is the most direct of the three choices the assembly had before it. It also runs close to the largest number of subdivisions but, aside from running through the southern portion of Wiederkehr Farms, affects the least number of area farmers.

Tuesday, the majority of last-minute pleadings favored no route at all, a choice Mayor Curt Menard supported.

“We’ve gotten too spoiled,” Menard said, noting that essentially, the route would service folks looking to shave a couple minutes off their drive times. The money available to buy right of way for the road could better be put toward existing roads.

He also said the extension project is not fully funded and expressed pessimism it ever would be.

“I know I’m not going to have a hope tonight but I’m laying it out there,” Menard said.

The red route was opposed mainly from a safety standpoint in previous meetings. Area homeowners said the route would become a drag strip between Colony High School and Palmer High School. They worried about having a major artery so close to their homes.

Borough planner Brad Swortz said the Borough is planning to incorporate school safety into the route. In laying out the Borough’s case for why the road is needed, he said the Palmer-Wasilla Highway is one of the most dangerous roads in the state. A new east-west corridor will alleviate some of the congestion, leading to fewer accidents.

The project is expected to cost $40 million, $12 million of which is already in hand from the state. At previous meetings, Swortz said the $12 million will mostly go toward acquiring rights of way. The Borough will seek state funding for the road’s construction.

Swortz said Tuesday the Borough plans to repave the existing Bogard Road this summer from Trunk Road west. As to the extension, the Borough is planning to build a two-lane route, but will buy enough rights of way to expand it to four in the future.

“I think that what made this so hard is that we made the decision to buy up the right of way that we would need in 20 years,” Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine said.

In supporting the extension, Bettine pointed to a phone survey conducted by Ivan Moore showing more than 69.4 percent of residents favor building a new corridor to supplement the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“A lot of people from further out of Palmer work in Palmer. That is really what drives the economy in Palmer,” she said.

Tom Kluberton made a change to the resolution explicitly reducing the amount of right of way purchased in front of Palmer High School from 200 to 150 feet.

Swortz said earlier in the meeting that the Borough had planned to do that anyway. With the narrow right of way, it will need to buy five homes to build the road.

Assemblyman Pete Houston proposed, to cheers from the crowd, not extending Bogard, a motion that failed 6-1.

Later, he found himself again alone among his peers in proposing a pair of changes to the route which, respectively, would have moved the route away from Weiderkehr Farms and provide an alternative that would have pushed the route farther north on its western edge.

In casting his final vote in favor of the red route, Houston’s voice carried a note of resignation.

At the end of the meeting, a majority of the assembly seemed relieved that after three years, a choice had been made.

“I’m happy that we passed this and I can now sleep,” Houston said.

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