Hundreds turn out for rail route meets

MAT-SU — Hundreds of Borough residents attended a series of workshops about a new rail route to Port MacKenzie and gave input project planners say will be valuable to the project.

The three proposed corridors begin in the Point MacKenzie area and run between 28 miles and 45 miles to different locations, where they connect with the railroad’s main line. They are in the Big Lake, Houston and Willow areas.

Organizers said the corridors drawn on maps shown at the meetings are “highly conceptual” and could move up to a half mile from the depicted line, according to a statement about the meetings issued by the Mat-Su Borough. There is no preferred corridor. A 2003 rail corridor study picked a route that would bisect the Willow community.

“The public comments from these meetings really help in refining our engineering work on all the proposed corridors,” said project manager Brian Lindamood of the Alaska Railroad Corp.

Hundreds of comments were gathered at the meetings, on the Web, through mail, e-mail and fax, as well as through a court reporter at each meeting, Borough spokeswoman Patty Sullivan said.

Joe Perkins, the Borough project executive, told an audience Thursday at Knik Elementary School that the federal Surface Transportation Board will have the final say over constructing the rail line and an approved contractor to build it.

“These folks are going to put the final blessing on the preferred route,” Perkins said. “The information we’re gathering now reflects the uniqueness of Alaska and our lifestyle. The work we’re doing now is to provide them more information so we can have a better application.”

A proposed route could be designed by December. The railroad and Borough anticipate trains running cargo to and from the port by 2012.