Parks plan divides communities

WASILLA — A state plan to upgrade an eight-mile stretch of the Parks Highway has two Valley communities embroiled in a debate over safety and commerce.

The state Department of Transportation is in the design phase of upgrading what has been tagged as one of the state’s most dangerous stretches of road from Miles 44 to 52, Parks Highway.

But the DOT’s plan to divide the highway also has caused a division between the state department and city of Wasilla, which argues that dividing the Parks from Lucus Road, where the project begins, to the western edge of city limits will hamper the value of commercial property along that stretch of highway.

“We can’t develop on the south side of the road, that’s the railroad,” explained Wasilla mayor Verne Rupright. “We have our couplet thing already approved, and now (DOT) wants to build a divided highway all the way out to Hollywood and Vine.”

That city has plans for a couplet, which would route traffic through downtown Wasilla on a pair of one-way streets that cross the Parks, that could be cut off by a divider, Rupright said. He said that coupled with earlier improvements to the Parks in the east part of the city that is already divided, the DOT plan effectively strangulates any potential commercial growth for the city.

“They blocked us going east, now they’re trying to block us going west,” he said, adding another plan to upgrade Knik-Goose Bay Road south of town with a divided roadway limits that potential as well. “Now they want to block us going down KBG.”

That’s why Rupright is asking Wasilla City Council to approve a pair of resolutions at the council’s regular meeting Monday opposing the state’s plans for the Parks Highway and Knik-Goose Bay Road upgrades.

The alternative, Rupright said, is to build a five-lane highway with a center turn lane to provide access to both sides of the highway.

“It’s a better, safer design, plus it preserves growth,” he said of Wasilla’s preferred alternative.

The city of Wasilla may prefer that plan, but it’s not as safe as a divided highway, which is what residents outside Wasilla city limits want to see, said Bill Cramer, Big Lake Community Council president. Cramer said it appears Wasilla is elevating commercial and business interests above safety.

“It seems that way to me,” Cramer said, adding the five-lane option is nearly as frightening as doing nothing. “Those are called suicide lanes for a good reason. We are in support of the four-lane divided highway with limited access, with the understanding there would be better accesses built for business.”

“It’s just a greed factor (for Wasilla),” added Cindy Bettine, a former Mat-Su Borough assemblywoman and Big Lake Community Council member. “I’ve been following this Parks Highway thing since about 2005 when I was an assembly member. There are so many acciden ts, we need something safe.”

What concerns Bettine, she said is that the Department of Transportation, which has already identified the four-lane divided highway as its preference, will become frustrated with the opposition and abandon plans to upgrade that stretch of highway.

“This is only going to delay the project and I’m afraid it’s going to die,” she said.

Killing the upgrades is not what the city of Wasilla wants, Rupright said, adding that he isn’t advocating the entire project be his preferred five-lane option; just the part that runs through city limits. He also bristled at other communities expressing negative opinions about Wasilla’s motives.

“This is Wasilla,” he said. “I don’t see the Wasilla mayor or city council going to the Big Lake Community Council saying ‘you have to do this.’ … I don’t know why they give a (darn). Why do they care what’s going on within our city limits?”

Big Lake has a place at the table because its residents commute through Wasilla, shop at Wasilla businesses and own businesses in the city that contribute to Wasilla’s sales tax revenues, Cramer said.

“I own three businesses along the highway,” he said. “I shop along the highway, I commute along the highway, so this affects a lot of things. The residents of Big Lake use this road to commute every day and our kids travel here from high school. To us, it’s about safety.”

Further, the argument that dividing the highway cuts off access to and is harmful to businesses just isn’t true, Cramer said. He owns the Tesoro gas station and convenience store on the northeast corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways where there’s already a divider. Since the divider went in, Cramer said it hasn’t affected the business at all.

“It used to have a left turn into it off the Parks Highway,” he said. “From southbound, you used to be able to turn left right into it, and it was not safe. Actually, the businesses prefer (a divider). They want to have their customers have a safe egress. When you have to make a left turn against opposing traffic or across two lanes of crossing a suicide lane, that’s where things get dangerous.”

Annexation question

Along with Rupright’s assertion that the Big Lake Community Council shouldn’t worry too much about what happens in Wasilla, Cramer and Bettine are questioning the pending annexation of several parcels of land in the Jacobson Lakes area. The property basically extends from the Wasilla Airport to the Parks and includes land where Denali Family Restaurant sits.

That land, about 76 acres, is owned by Wasilla-based Mat-Su Real Properties, which has lobbied for a five-lane highway with a center turn lane. A telephone message and email to Paul Gardner, registered agent for Avanti Corp., which owns Mat-Su Real Properties, weren’t responded to by press time. However, at a Wasilla City Council meeting last May, Gardner appealed to the council about the state’s highway plan.

“If you’re leaving a property, your business, your subdivision and you want to make a left turn onto the Parks Highway, you cannot do that because you can’t go across the median,” he said. “It is not conducive to good business practices to have your access cut off, and this design and the DOT’s plans for Knik-Goose Bay Road (does that).”

Archie Giddings, Wasilla’s longtime public works director, said the annexation of this new area into city limits is moving forward at the request of the property owner.

“It’s in the process, but it isn’t annexed yet,” he said. The city’s planning commission and council have approved the application, which also needs approval from the state boundary commission before becoming final.

Cramer said he believes part of the motivation to annex that property is to extend Wasilla’s boundary in its argument for a five-lane highway through the city.

“I think (it’s an attempt) at an end-run at this stage in the game because now out here to the restaurant is in Wasilla,” he said.

That the annexation has anything to do with Rupright’s or the city council’s stance on the DOT highway plan is spurious, said city councilwoman Dianne Woodruff.

“I think that the annexation makes sense, although I wish it didn’t create that donut hole. It’s contiguous (in the city) from the airport up, but not from Church (Street) over. The only property that was annexed in through this process was the (Avanti) property.”

Wasilla may be fighting an uphill battle with DOT, Woodruff said.

“I think DOT has looked at it from a safety standpoint,” she said. “I don’t think they’re done listening to the public, and the smartest thing the council could do is to postpone (the resolutions) and see what transpires at (a Wednesday DOT public) meeting. I think safety needs to be the prominent issue here. If there’s good access, it doesn’t have to be a four-lane or five-lane, people will go there.”

Over the past few months, Wasilla councilwoman and deputy mayor Colleen Sullivan-Leonard said she’s been examining the safety issue and discovered something surprising; that the Parks has already seen a decline in serious and fatal accidents since that stretch of highway has been designated and patrolled by troopers as a safety corridor.

“After some careful consideration and some research I did, I was able to find out DOT’s designated safety corridor has cut down on fatalities, and I think that’s significant,” she said.

A divided highway actually encourages faster driving, and speed through the safety corridor “is when the fatalities happen,” she said.

The debate is expected to continue Jan. 30 at a public open house to discuss the progress on the Parks Highway upgrade, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Houston High School.

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

What: Wasilla City Council meeting.

Why: Consideration of resolutions against state Department of Transportation preferred alternatives for upgrading the Parks Highway and Knik-Goose Bay Road.

When: 6 p.m., Jan. 28.

Where: Wasilla City Hall, council chambers.