Safety is the best solution

The debate in the Valley over what to do with the Parks Highway west of Wasilla spilled over into a Juneau hearing room last Thursday.

The state is planning to build a four-lane highway from Lucus Road to Big Lake Road with a center divider. Access to the highway would be limited. As far as we can discern, the debate appears to be between two camps.

On one side are people concerned with safety who say something needs to be done about high accident rates on that stretch of pavement.

On the other side are people skeptical about the safety of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities’ plan and who also are concerned about how the proposed changes will affect local businesses.

While we are hopeful the final solution will offer a reasonable outcome for business people, we side strongly with safety on this one. We aren’t being hyperbolic when we say that this stretch of the Parks Highway is the state’s most dangerous road. Even worse than that oft-lamented Seward Highway south of Anchorage, or Knik-Goose Bay Road, this stretch of the Parks sees more serious wrecks and fatalities every year than any other road in the state. Any improvements to this road must be first and foremost about safety.

Opponents to the state’s plan propose in its place a five-lane highway with a center left turn lane, colloquially known as a “suicide lane.”

If it can be conclusively demonstrated that this kind of road is safer than what the state is proposing, we’re all for it.

But the state’s experts — and they are that, experts — say it isn’t so. Four lanes with a center divider is safer, even with a faster speed limit than a five-lane road.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright, in his testimony to the state Senate, advocated an alternative. Pushing a highway around downtown either to the north or the south would be a better idea, he said.

We’re not convinced he’s wrong. But we doubt it would be any less traumatic to the community, since either route would send it through residential areas.

It would also be a costly project. Last time we reported on the idea about a year ago, we couldn’t find even a ballpark estimate of that cost. The closest we’ve seen is a $350 million figure thrown out by advocates of a Knik Arm Bridge.

The second factor is time. The state says it’s at least two years away from breaking ground on its expansion project, and it’ll probably take at least a couple summers to get it done. The state already has put in six years.

That’s actually typical. State projects using federal dollars usually take 10 to 12 years to complete. Trunk Road took 25.

Starting over right now as a bypass project means 10 more years, six if you discount the four we’d have to wait regardless. If accidents on that road keep their current pace — and growth projections seem to indicate they’ll only increase — that means two deaths per year. That’s 12 to 20 more of our neighbors dead on that road before the planned fix can be rolled out.

Improvements won’t bring fatal and injury accidents down to zero, of course. But any significant reduction is better than stomaching 12 to 20 more fatalities.