In split vote, borough assembly favors planned West Susitna road ending on Ayrshire, Port MacKenzie roads

The state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has changed the route of a proposed 22-mile new road to the Susitna River and a few miles beyond to begin at the West Susitna Parkway instead of Ayrshire Avenue off the Point MacKenzie Road.

The change isn’t sitting well with some Matanuska-Susitna Borough assembly members, who passed a resolution at the assembly’s Aug. 20 meeting that supported the original starting point on Ayrshire Avenue. The vote was split, however. Two members of the assembly, Dmitri Fonov and Ron Bernier, voted no on the resolution, however.

The change was made to avoid the Susitna Flats State Game Refuge. The road built from Ayrshire would have crossed the northeast part of the refuge.

There’s some confusion about the project because people get it mixed up with a longer, 90-mile industrial road proposed to be built further to the northwest. The 22.5-mile segment is a public road that would be built by the DOTPF and financed mostly with federal funds. In contrast, the industrial road, if it is built, would be essentially a private road funded with fees paid by users, such as mining companies. It is planned to be financed and built by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state’s development finance corporation, and would have controlled access, or not completely open for public use.

However, the 22.5-mile public road can also be seen as a kind of first phase of the overall West Susitna Access initiative, although they are two separate projects.

There’s no guarantee the longer 90-mile industrial road will be built because it depends on companies still exploring for minerals west of Skwentna. In contrast, the shorter 22.5-mile road is fully funded with federal transportation funds along with bridges that would be needed for a Susitna River crossing and a crossing on Alexander Creek west of the Susitna.

The state transportation department also extended the public road by four miles from an original plan. It was to have been 18 miles and ending at the Susitna but was extended 4.5 miles west to reach an area where lands are owned by the Mat-Su Borough and platted for residential and recreation development.

The criticism of this is that the road is intended to eventually be connected to the West Susitna Access Project, a proposed 90-mile industrial road built to an area west of Skwentna where mining companies are exploring.

If mines are developed and the 90-mile industrial road is built a route to the Point MacKenzie road would take mining trucks directly to the port area.

If the initial public 22.5-mile road is built to connect with the West Susitna Parkway, and the longer indusrial road is built it could have mining trucks rolling through areas that are mainly residential, some people fear.

The assembly’s resolution, sponsored by assembly person Bill Gamble, would keep the road to its original intended purpose of funneling industrial traffic to Port MacKenzie, the borough’s port on Upper Cook Inlet.

There are other views on that, too. Since the shorter road would be for public access a connection at Ayrshire Avenue would have the effect of putting more traffic on the Port MacKenzie and Knik Goose Bay roads, which some believe to be not a good idea.

The state’s DOTPF is meanwhile been holding public meetings on the route change with a public comment period that closed Aug. 23. The agency plans to begin an Environmental Assessment, or EA, of the 22-mile road in early 2025 after additional field work is completed this fall.

If the EA is done and approved it’s possible that part of the 22.5-mile road could be under construction in 2025.

The estimated cost of the road is $25 million. The two bridges, the largest being that to cross the Susitna, will cost an estimated $58 million.

Once built, the roads would provide access to about six million acres of the western Matanuska-Susitna Borough that is now largely inaccessible.