Northbound Knik River Bridge to open ahead of Memorial Day weekend

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) announced that the northbound Knik River Bridge is set to open before Memorial Day Weekend.

On a post to social media, DOT&PF thanked everyone who everyone who drove safely through the area and helped traffic flow smoothly during the first phase of construction.

Now, the DOT&PF is preparing to close the southbound bridge, and is hopeful for this closure goes as smoothly as the first one did. Both bridges will be open with minimal traffic impacts over the busy Memorial Day Weekend.

The Southbound bridge will be closed starting June 2 and is expected to remain closed for 30 days while construction gets underway.

Work on these bridges, along with the northbound Peters Creek bridge near Chugiak is needed to extend the service lives of the bridges, reduce maintenance costs, and enhance safety.

All three of these bridges are over 30 years old, and the two northbound bridges — the northbound Knik River bridge and northbound Peters Creek Bridge — are nearly 60 years old, having been built in the 1960s. The bridges have potholes, ruts, and other maintenance issues that need to be repaired.

Work on this project will include repairing potholes in the concrete decks, installing polyester concrete overlay to waterproof the bridges and reduce corrosion, replacing the approach slabs to improve the driving surface. Work will also be done to replace expansion joints, damaged drainage hardware, and guardrail as needed, and work will be done to upgrade signs and pavement markings

The DOT&PF is also asking for the public’s input on how well the closure has been communicated, in addition to other traffic updates. The public can weigh in on a survey.

The DOT&PF says that they will take responses and suggestions into consideration and make adjustments in real time since we have another bridge closure coming up. For more information about the Knik River Bridges project, see www.glennbridges.com