Bridge opens over railroad

WASILLA -- Last weekend DOT opened a new road that could relieve traffic at Wasilla's busiest intersection and allow drivers to avoid waiting while trains pass through town. The new Palmer-Wasilla Highway extension connects the highway through to Knik-Goose Bay Road, allowing traffic headed to neighborhoods south of Wasilla to avoid the often snarled traffic at the intersection of the Parks Highway, Knik-Goose Bay Road and Main Street.

The new route also allows drivers to take a bridge over the railroad tracks instead of using the at-grade crossing that complicates the congestion at the Main Street intersection. Since 1984, there have been four accidents in which locomotives collided with road vehicles at the crossing, according to statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration.

School busses took advantage of the new route on Monday.

"We have already begun routing some of the busses [away from Main Street]," David Dickerson, contract manager for First Student said. "We were asked not to route all of them in any one direction … We don't want to concentrate all of the busses at either intersection," Dickerson said.

First Student is a private contractor that started running the district's school busses in the fall of 2001. Dickerson is not new to the Valley. He worked as a driver training supervisor for Laidlaw, the previous contractor, and worked locally for school bus contractor Mayflower prior to that.

The Main Street intersection and the intersection of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla Highways are the two busiest intersections in Wasilla.

Until last week, busses that left schools north of downtown and were headed to neighborhoods south of town had one choice: join the herd at the intersection of Parks Highway, Knik-Goose Bay Road and Main Street.

In 2001, approximately 33,700 vehicles per day passed under the Main Street traffic signals, according to DOT figures. The intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla and Parks highways served about 31,165 vehicles per day the same year. DOT planners expect many drivers will choose the new road, and Wasilla's busiest and second busiest intersections might switch places in rank.

"Over time, I think it will be of significant benefit," DOT area Planner Dave Post told an audience at a recent Wasilla Chamber of Commerce meeting. Post said the major benefit would be for traffic headed to and from core area businesses along the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways and neighborhoods south of Wasilla -- traffic that otherwise would have traveled through the Main Street intersection in order to get south of the railroad tracks.

Because school busses are required to stop at the tracks, they slow the Main Street intersection down even more. It's an effect that's not lost on the district's transportation managers or the school board members.

"Certainly there has been much discussion in the community about busses at that intersection adding to the traffic," board member Bob Johnson said. But Johnson added that the board, while aware of traffic problems, doesn't spend a lot of time discussing them in meetings. The board is supportive of district transportation managers, Johnson said.

District transportation manager Scott Schwald was out of town this week and unavailable for comment.

The school board has the power to direct its administration and bus contractor to re-route busses. When asked if re-routing more busses to avoid the railroad crossing was feasible, Dickerson said it's best to make those changes at the beginning of a school year.

"Busses coming to school have kids on them who need to arrive on time. It would get into a routing issue about whether or not to add time to those routes -- next year, that's something district transportation can look at and it will only work for some busses," Dickerson said.

The route from Wasilla Middle School to the new intersection of Knik-Goose Bay Road and the Palmer Wasilla Highway is 1.6 miles, using Crusey Street, turning right at the Parks Highway and heading directly into the Parks/Main Street/Knik-Goose Bay/Railroad intersection. Going the long way and crossing the tracks on the new bridge adds about .8 miles to the trip.

Last March, a locomotive collided with an SUV and knocked it of the tracks at the Knik-Goose Bay railroad crossing just south of the Main Street intersection. The accident happened at 8:19 a.m. on a Friday, during heavy mid-morning traffic. The driver of the SUV was not seriously hurt. A search of Federal Railroad Administration accident reports shows four similar accidents since 1984. Non of the accidents were fatal.

It's difficult to say how many -- if any -- accidents happened at the intersection before 1984. FRA spokesman Warren Flatau said that the data accessible on the FRA Web site is only as complete as the data that individual railroads, states and local authorities provide to the FRA.

"We feel more confident with the information in recent decades," Flatau said.