Palmer trail plan coming together

PALMER -- Engineers working on design for Palmer's urban revitalization plan gave a presentation to the Palmer City Council last Tuesday on progress of the project. The core of the revitalization plan is a bike path and other parks amenities to be built along the railroad right-of-way that splits Palmer from north to south.

Planners from Lounsbury and Associates Inc. and Land Design North have held open houses and conducted interviews with area residents and various people representing the Alaska Railroad, local utilities, the Alaska State Troopers and other "stake-holder" organizations. At Tuesday's meeting, Jeff Dillon of Land Design North gave a brief presentation and introduced a 75-page scoping document. The scoping document has been in the works since last February, but Dillon said there isn't a final plan yet.

"Some of the alternatives in [the document] you're not going to like, because we were responding to the railroad's wishes," Dillon said. He said the planners hoped that the bicycle trail and some park amenities could run within 20 feet of the railroad tracks -- a distance he said was an accepted minimum distance standard in the United States for railways that get little use.

Alaska Railroad spokesman Patrick Flynn said that discussions about the project are ongoing and that the railroad was supportive of the project.

"Everyone's excited about the Palmer project," Flynn said.

On the subject of negotiating to protect its future right-of-way, Flynn said the railroad is required to be practical.

"We sort of have to keep the long view. What happens if we need to re-establish a rail line there? If the world changes and in five years gas is 20 bucks a gallon, then suddenly rail access becomes pretty darn important. We have to be mindful of that," Flynn said.

At the council meeting, Dillon said the current plan was to end the tracks within 200 feet of the Palmer Railroad Depot -- the exact distance has yet to be determined. Railroad officials and some citizens want the plan to include passenger train access to the depot so that trains might come into downtown in the future.

At any rate, the scoping document includes several options and plenty of features. Palmer has about $180,000 in federal funds to plan the project and another $1.1 million for construction has been appropriated by Congress. Construction could start next year.

To help decide which ideas in the scoping report will be in the final engineering plans, there will be more open house meetings next fall and more input from the public, Dillon told the council.

The planners will give another public presentation of the scoping report on Tuesday, July 30, at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at city hall. That meeting is held by a steering committee for the project, but anyone is welcome to attend.

"The public certainly can attend, but it's not another open house. The purpose is to present some of the concepts and review some of the alternatives" said city manager Tom Healy.