Road bonds set for statewide ballot

Funding for three Mat-Su area road projects will be subjected to a state-wide vote next November. The legislature has put $123 million in road construction bonds on Alaska's statewide ballot. The bond proposition includes projects throughout the state and, if it passes, will be the first bond package of its type sold by the state since the 1980s. Included in the package are $7.5 million for Seward Meridian Road, $13.2 million for the Old Glenn Highway and $1.2 million for South Church Road in Wasilla.

George Williams, chairman of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Transportation Advisory Board (TAB), said that while he wants to see the bond package pass, he's not sure the state has its priorities straight.

"I'm a little disappointed because the TAB board has been pushing to get the Bogard Road extension through to Palmer," Williams said. "The Bogard Road extension has been one of our number one priorities for years. We can't seem to get them to move it up -- it's only a mile and half of construction, and it needs to be looked at."

The TAB is made up of citizen appointees such as Williams and officials from Palmer, Wasilla, Houston and the Mat-Su Borough. TAB meets monthly, and DOT officials also attend the TAB meetings. The borough's list of TAB attendees has 20 people on it, making it unlikely that TAB speaks with one voice. Williams has mixed feelings about the planning process -- he thinks TAB should carry more weight with DOT, but he's also bullish on TAB as a forum.

"I think we provide a good source of information for the borough," Williams said, "We would like to get a little more input and be a little more effective."

Like most people who drive, Williams sometimes wonders what drives DOT, and he's frank about that.

"Sometimes they have their own agenda," he said.

DOT spokesman Murph O'Brien said his agency works closely with borough planners -- O'Brien himself attended TAB when he was Mat-Su area planner for DOT.

"We feel we get a lot of support from the advisory board, and over the years we have completed many of the projects that they've identified," O'Brien said.

The Seward Meridian upgrade is a borough priority that dovetails with a DOT planned interchange at the Parks Highway and Seward Meridian Road, which should be completed by 2004, according to O'Brien. The project is still in the planning phase, but O'Brien said it will extend Seward Meridian north to East Seldon Road.

"The traffic projections show that we have a few years to bring that up to speed," O'Brien said. He said that sections of Seward Meridian that will be four-lane and sections that will be two-lane haven't yet been determined.

Alaskans into planning jargon often talk of the "CIP" and the "STIP." The acronyms stand for capital improvement project list and statewide transportation improvement plan. The lists might be useful planning tools, but, as list watchers know, they aren't written in stone, and projects don't necessarily move up the list in first-in, first-out style as if the planning process were a mail room.

"It's not static, and there are shifts in priority," O'Brien said.

Two of Williams' favorite projects are the Bogard extension and a widening of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. O'Brien pointed out that the Knowles administration and the DOT commissioner Joseph Perkins had approached the legislature with a bond package more than double what the legislature eventually approved for the ballot. The Bogard Road extension was a part of the aborted bond package, according to DOT Mat-Su Area Planner Dave Post.

"It was originally submitted as a recommendation by [DOT] staff to the governor and was in the governor's package," Post said.

O'Brien said cutting the bond package and deciding which projects to include was the legislature's prerogative.

"They have to find a balance between the ability to pay the bonds back and their assessment of what the voters would likely pass," O'Brien said.