Public to weigh in on highway upgrade

MAT-SU — If you want to add your two cents or just get a sneak peak at plans to add a center turn lane to pretty much the entire length of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, Wednesday is your chance.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has begun a project that will eventually expand the congested and dangerous highway from Hurley Circle — the stoplight at the entrance to the Fred Meyer and Target Parking lots — all the way to Hemmer Road in Palmer. A second project — the Palmer-Wasilla Highway Eastern Terminus Project — expands that last stretch of the road into Palmer.

The state christened its first highway safety corridor along the Sterling Highway in 2006, on the heels of a report documenting the five most dangerous highways in Alaska. Three of the remaining four most dangerous roads are in Mat-Su. Two of those — Knik-Goose Bay Road, and the Parks Highway from Wasilla to Big Lake — are now also safety corridors. The Palmer-Wasilla Highway isn’t.

KGB and the Parks also are the focus of ongoing efforts to rebuild them to improve safety. Work has started on the Parks and is cued up on KGB.

According to project documents, the widening project on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway is an attempt to catch up.

“Fatal and major injury crash mapping on high speed rural corridors led the DOT&PF to focus in 2011 on a project for the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Out of five Safety Corridor candidates, the Palmer-Wasilla Highway was the only one without major investments pending,” reads the project’s website. “The project will enhance the safety of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway corridor and mitigate the rear-end, head on, and angle collisions related to a higher density of driveways and left turning related crashes in the corridor.”

Still, the site seems to say this isn’t the final safety project on the road:

“The DOT&PF is pursuing the current project to meet today’s traffic needs and extend the life of the corridor, recognizing that a more significant improvement will be needed in the future when funding allows.”

The project’s timeline indicates that preliminary design has been completed and final design will begin later this year. A press release announcing Wednesday’s meeting says they’re buying land to build on. Construction is slated for summer of 2016.

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

What: An open house to discuss how to add a center turn lane to the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

Where: Colony High School Commons

When: 5 to 7 p.m., Wednesday