On the road again

PALMER — What was once an unpopular couplet of one-way streets in and out of the city has morphed into a raft of traffic-calming measures, and transportation planners want to hear what you think.

From 4 to 8 p.m., Thursday at the Palmer Train Depot, the community group and state Department of Transportation officials tasked with the project — now dubbed the Palmer-Wasilla Highway Eastern Terminus Project — will present their work.

In case folks weren’t paying attention back in summer 2009, the project was the subject of numerous, sometimes-heated public meetings before state and local officials eventually settled on a compromise that eliminated the one-way couplet idea.

Nearly two years later, the state, working with a group of interested residents, is to the point where they’re picking out intersections and bike paths. The routes are pretty much chosen.

“We’re actually now getting down to the nuts and bolts of things,” said Richard Best, the city’s deputy mayor who also sits on the committee.

Mayor DeLena Johnson described the volunteers and state workers as tremendously dedicated.

“It’s been a long process. There’s been lots and lots of hours put into it,” she said. “It’s been amazing watching the process work.”

Thursday’s meeting, she said, is an attempt to make sure the project’s direction still meets with residents’ approval. She said they have managed to hammer out most of the sticking points with the original project.

Best shares that assessment.

“Everybody, in my opinion, is probably 90 percent satisfied with what we have as a whole,” he said. “Not everybody is going to get their one thing that they’re most desiring.”

For instance, he said people seeking to push all traffic out of downtown will not get their way. It won’t be an all-pedestrian downtown. Nor will people be satisfied who wanted to move a whole lot of traffic through a big artery in the center of town, he said.

Personally, Best said, he came to the committee with a strong opinion about stoplights. He’s a fan of blinking red lights and four-way stops, he said.

“I don’t think Palmer needs traffic lights in its downtown areas,” Best said. “I don’t think we’re Wasilla quite yet. … Wasilla has the traffic volumes that overwhelm intersections.”

Improvements center around changes mostly on the Palmer end of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, Dogwood Avenue and Evergreen Avenue.

But Best said the project is also looking at improvements south of town near the Alaska State Fairgrounds. The idea is to piggyback on a separate state project to upgrade the Glenn Highway as it enters town.

And there are a number of variables. For instance, Best said, there’s a new stoplight just outside of downtown directing traffic in and out of the parking lot for the recently opened Carrs store. And the project to connect Arctic Avenue and Bogard Road is moving forward steadily.

That project — the Bogard Road Extension — has as its mission pulling traffic off of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. How that plays into the Eastern Terminus plans is something Best has been tracking, he said.

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