New Trunk Road opens

MAT-SU — Just in case you haven’t seen it yet, the new Trunk Road is now open and in service.

“It went online at about 1:15 this morning,” project engineer John Waisanen said Thursday.

Of course, the new road isn’t the whole road. It’s just the stretch from the Parks Highway to the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. The route opened without any fanfare. Workers just took the cones down and switched on the stoplight at the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

The project isn’t over yet.

“There’s still another months’ worth of work on the job here. We’ve got to complete the frontage roads and landscaping and fencing and all of that,” Waisanen said.

He also said the road didn’t necessarily open ahead of schedule, more like on time. The plan all along had been to wrap it up this summer.

It’s a large, $21 million project that’s been under way since last year. The old route has already been renamed Stringfield Road and will serve as a local road servicing those subdivisions.

Attempts Thursday to find out where the name Stringfield come were unsuccessful as of press time. The state’s Department of Transportation referred questions to the borough where calls weren’t immediately returned.

The project is the first of a two-phase project. The second phase won’t begin this summer, but will push the new road almost all the way to Palmer-Fishhook Road. At some point north of Bogard Road the new route will meet up with the old and take drivers to where the road ends now.

Right now, Waisanen said, the state is getting the Phase II project ready to advertise for contractors willing to bid on it.

“It won’t be advertised until this fall, probably October,” he said.

The idea all along has been to provide a wider, straighter road. The new road has four lanes with a divider in the center and a bike path along the side. It also lacks the sharp turns, blind corners and steep inclines the old one had.

The roundabout down by Mat-Su Regional Medical Center is the first in the Valley, but the state has said roundabouts have been proven to decrease injuries from car accidents and drivers here should expect to see more in coming years.

More information about the Trunk Road project can be found at trunkroad.com where visitors can also give input to DOT.

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