Busy traffic cone season planned

WASILLA — Back-to-back groundbreaking ceremonies on local road projects Thursday and Friday highlight what Valley motorists already know — it’s a busy road construction season in the Mat-Su.

The state has projects affecting the Parks Highway north of Wasilla and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway south of Parks Highway. But the borough and local municipalities also are tearing up roads this season and building new ones. Here’s a list of roads you might try to avoid this summer:

• Seldon Road/Lucille Street intersection: The borough has $10 million — half from bonds, half from the state — to rebuild this intersection. A roundabout will be installed, fixing trouble spots on all sides of the intersection and hopefully taking care of what has long been a troublesome spot for accidents in the Valley. It’s a complicated project, involving $1.5 million just to move utilities like gas lines and telephone lines out of the way. At the groundbreaking ceremony for the project Thursday, Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Colver praised borough staff.

“I have been very impatient to get this thing done and I thank them for being patient with me,” he said.

• Bogard Road: this one is new construction meaning it won’t be tearing up an existing road and will only be an inconvenience to a few homeowners on the western edge. Still, it’s a $22 million project, the biggest the borough has ever attempted and, when complete, it will open up a major east-west thoroughfare

“This is one of many projects that are important to the borough,” Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, said at the project’s groundbreaking ceremony Friday.

• Dogwood Avenue and Felton Street Extension: these Palmer roads are the recipients of $4.3 million in upgrades. Phase II of the Bogard project, which hasn’t been funded yet, includes upgrades to Felton to improve the way the road ties into Bogard.

• Clapp Road to Mack Road Extension: The extension of Clapp will make a second access to the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center and the Wasilla Airport, both of which, city officials have pointed out, will be critical infrastructure in the case of an emergency to get supplies in and shelter the displaced. Extending the road will cost $7 million.

• Hawk Lane upgrade and paving: The road is an important one for the city of Houston — it’s the main route to the city’s high school and middle school. Upgrading and paving it will cost $2 million.

• Sullivan Avenue and Caudill Road Upgrade: For $5 million the borough is planning to upgrade this major thoroughfare in Butte.

• Willow Lake Drive Upgrade: For $1.8 million the borough plans to upgrade this route along the western shore of Willow Lake.

• Vine Road Upgrade: Work on this $10 million fix to a major Big Lake/Meadow Lakes thoroughfare has already begun.

• Seldon Road Extension and Beverly Lake Road Upgrade: The borough plans to use $7.5 million to connect Seldon and Beverly Lake roads and upgrade a section of Beverly Lake. When this project and the Bogard extension are complete, drivers will be able to travel from Butte to Pittman Road without making a turn.

• Sutton Elementary to Glenn Highway paved pathway: The pathway from the school to the highway passes the Sutton Library along the way, meaning it will be a well-traveled route for Sutton’s school children. The project will cost $1 million.

• S. Big Lake Road Realignment: The $9.7 million in this project wasn’t quite enough to do everything the borough would like to do with this piece of Big Lake Road but it’s enough to build the road embankment, take down the hills and fill in the dips necessary to build the new road. The project had actually been a state project during the 20 years it has been planned, until this year when the borough successfully requested to take it over.

• Knik River Road: This one is also already underway with the borough sending out closure notices periodically. It’s a $2.1 million project to fix some pretty significant safety issues on the road.

• Machen Road: This $6 million upgrade is for Machen Road, which is essentially Parks Highway frontage road in the section of that road the state is upgrading on the west side of Wasilla.

• Port MacKenzie Road paving: The smallest project on the borough’s list will take $600,000 to pave the last bit of the road as it approaches the borough’s docks.

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