DOT seeks comment on highway upgrades

WASILLA — Mat-Su Borough residents have until the end of June to comment on changes the state’s Department of Transportation has planned for two local Traffic Safety Corridors.

The safety corridors are stretches of road in which traffic fines are doubled and in which the state has committed itself to make improvements to reduce the number of accidents. The first Valley corridor is from Miles 44.5 and 53 of the Parks Highway. The second is on Knik-Goose Bay Road from Mile 0.6 to Mile 17.2.

Probably the biggest proposed change would be the addition of a stoplight at Parks Highway and Stanley Road, near Church on the Rock in Wasilla.

“They have to kind of reconfigure Stanley Road to make a four-way stop,” said Holly Sanders, with DOT.

They’ll also have to widen both roads 10 to 14 feet to put in turn lanes, realign the bike trail on the north side of Stanley and move around some utility poles and drainage culverts.

The plan also calls for radar speed signs — those electronic signs that display for drivers how fast they’re going. There will be approximately five per corridor. Some signs will come with 12-by-100-foot pullouts, if needed, to accommodate them.

The other two state corridors — one on the Seward Highway, the other on the Sterling Highway — will also be getting the signs.

“You’re driving and they just tell you what your speed is so hopefully you can slow down,” Sanders said.

The project is only now entering its engineering and environmental study phase. The idea is to have it constructed in the summer of 2012.

Comments are due to DOT by June 27 and should be sent to Brian Elliott, Regional Environmental Manager, PO Box 196900, Anchorage, AK, 99519-6900.