‘Fishback’ is preferred Seldon route

MEADOW LAKES — The Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission, as of press time, was set to discuss the route the Seldon Road extension will take.

Taken up at Monday night’s meeting, resolution 15-02 recommends approval of the Fishback Circle alignment “based on the preliminary engineering report findings and public input,” according to project materials.

Borough project manager Mike Campfield said four routes were evaluated based on a range of criteria, including cost, safety, impacts to private property, wetlands, stream crossings and existing dwellings.

The project is the second leg of a 4-mile extension that will ultimately link Seldon-Bogard Road from Pittman to Palmer — a plan in the making since the 1980s, Campfield said.

“It will be an additional east-west arterial to connect our cities,” he said.

Sara Doyle, Public Involvement Specialist for Stantec — formerly USKH — said the 15-mile arterial corridor will be about 60 percent complete after the upcoming construction season. Phase I of the Seldon Extension will open this fall. And while the design for Phase II is 35 percent complete, it will be 2018 before Phase 2 will connect to Pittman directly, Doyle said.

“We’ve looked at what is feasible,” she said. “Now we need to start dialing in the design.”

Phase I is expected to cost about $5 million of the total $7.5 million in state grant and borough general obligation bonds set aside for it, according to project materials.

Once a preferred route is selected, Stantec will engineer the roadway design, Doyle said.

Any money remaining from Phase 1 will be used to begin design work on Phase 2, she told a standing room only audience at the Meadow Lakes Community Council meeting Jan. 15.

Phase 2 route ultimately up to assembly

Various routes were evaluated based on a variety of points, but safety was a key factor, Doyle said. One of the reasons Fishback is the preferred route is that there are only four driveways onto that section of road now, project materials show.

The idea behind the Fishback design is to split out fast-moving through traffic from slower, neighborhood traffic, she said.

The new section of road is expected to open at about 5,000 cars a day, similar to traffic on Seldon and Church now, Doyle said. Some of these vehicles will continue on to Beverly Lakes Road, which sees about 1,000 vehicles a day now, she said.

That 4,000-car increase makes it imperative that Phase 2 is funded and built as quickly as possible to reduce impacts to the existing Beverly Lakes community, Doyle said.

Campfield said traffic calming devices such as speed bumps and radar signs will remind drivers of the step down in speed from 50 mph to 30 mph.

“I just want people to be mindful of that when the road opens,” he said.

In 20 years, vehicle count on this section of the Seldon corridor is expected to reach 10,000 vehicles, she said.

Campfield said the route Phase 2 takes is ultimately up to assembly members. Everything else — from the community council’s to the planning commission vote on the recommended route — is advisory, he said.

Still, Doyle and Campfield will be back in front of the Meadow Lakes Community Council Feb. 12 asking the community to support the Fishback alternative.

“We would like to get feedback tonight before it goes to planning and the assembly,” Doyle told the audience at the Meadow Lakes Community Council meeting Jan. 15, before members voted to postpone action on the plan.

The plan also was introduced at the January planning commission meeting and presented to the Transportation Advisory Board, Campfield said. The Assembly is tentatively scheduled to take up the Fishback alignment plan in March, he said.

Over the years, a couple of transportation and comprehensive plans have envisioned continuing the road farther on toward Houston along Skyview Drive, according to project materials. Such a project is beyond the horizon and well outside the scope of this extension, but the idea is there, Campfield said.

For more information about the project, visit matsugov.us/project/roads/bond-projects.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.