Borough works to update transportation plan

MAT-SU — Anyone who drives through the Mat-Su Valley knows there are certain roads to avoid at certain times. They know the short-cuts and the cut-throughs that will get them home from work 10 minutes sooner, and the stoplights to avoid if they want to get their kids to school in time to grab a double mocha before work.

If there’s a road you hate to drive, or a four-way stop that drives you crazy, or if cars zoom through your subdivision to avoid congested thoroughfares, the borough wants to hear from you.

Borough experts are working on updating the Mat-Su’s Long Range Transportation Plan, said Planning Director Eileen Probasco, and this time they’re trying something a little different.

“In the past, we’ve come out with a plan and said, ‘Here it is, what do you think?’ and it didn’t generate much interest or comment,” she said. “This time we’re taking the approach of, what frustrations do you have? What would you like to see done differently?”

Probasco said her department does get a fair amount of ongoing comments about local roads.

“We are a rapidly growing borough,” she said. “So what we’re trying to do is do a good job on the front end, so we can plan for the future more efficiently.”

The Long Range Transportation Plan is designed to guide future transportation improvements during the next 20 years, and takes into account everything from traffic patterns to subdivision planning to school attendance rates. In effect, Probasco said, it impacts every homeowner in the borough.

“Every homeowner pays taxes for road maintenance, for example,” she said. “Knowing which routes people take helps us determine things like the strength of a certain road, the depth of the pavement on it. If you’ve got a residential road that’s suddenly being accessed by a bunch of gravel trucks for a nearby construction site, that’s going to impact it a lot, bring a lot of wear and tear.”

The goal, Probasco said, is to develop a plan that takes growth into account and prepares for it ahead of time. “So we’re smart about it.”

Borough Public Affairs Director Patty Sullivan said the borough has grown by 50 percent in the last decade alone. Certain areas have grown even more than that.

“Knik-Fairview has grown 123 percent in the last 11 years,” she added. “You can feel it on KGB.”

Emerson Krueger, borough planner, said postcards mailed to residents in recent weeks have garnered a lot of interest. However, for the most part, the comments are no surprise to planners.

“We’ve gotten a lot of phone calls and a lot of feedback on those, and it’s been interesting to gather those,” he said. “But really, all you have to do is drive around the borough at rush hour to know where the rough spots are.”

Krueger said it takes years for traffic to build up in some areas. “It happens slowly and incrementally. Eventually (a high traffic load) just overwhelms the road system. At the same time, he cautions that improvements take decades.

“Improvements have already been happening in increments,” he said. “The thing is, it might be five years before a road is where we want it to be, because of the huge expense involved.”

Krueger said residents can use matsugov.us/plans/lrtp to get updates and contact information for the planning department. He said a series of meetings will be scheduled on the plan, probably in mid-July.