School Board discusses safe walking routes on Seward-Meridian project

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough School Board continued their discussion on Safe Routes to Schools with a presentation from Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Project Manager for phase two of the Seward-Meridian Parkway improvements Chris Bentz. The topic was brought up at the joint meeting of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly and school board in March. Bentz said that the project likely will not begin construction this year, but in the summer of 2022.

“We’re going to be adding lanes which will increase the capacity of the highway and should reduce congestion as well,” said Bentz. “Right now what we’re looking at for the schedule is the design, right of way and utilities activities we were talking about. We hope all that will be complete by July of this year. Roughly the biggest unknown of that of course is the right of way acquisitions piece. We’re working with individual private property owners and so some of that timeline is a little bit out of our control.”

Bentz said that the design is 95 percent complete and more than 65 percent of right of way properties have been acquired. The larger project received an environmental assessment with a finding of no significant impact in 2007. The upgraded Seward-Meridian Parkway will be a four lane roadway with a dedicated turn lane. Seward-Meridian Parkway is classified as an arterial road by DOTPF and will provide a new north-south connector once completed. Between the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Bogard Road, the project will construct raised medians for access control with segmented left turn pockets. From Bogard Road to Seldon Road, the project will put in a two-way left turn lane in the center of the roadway.

“Theoretically construction could start really late in ‘21, but the likelihood of that is pretty low, especially the further we get later in the season,” said Bentz.

The road project will put new traffic signals at Cottonwood Creek Elementary and the corner of East Meridian Park Loop and East Birch View Drive, as well as rebuilding a traffic signal at the corner of Bogard Road and Seldon Road. The project will also provide a separated multi-use pathway along the west side of the road as well as lighting from beginning to end. \

“Last year we had a presentation and we had a lot of parental concern about students crossing between the schools at the northern end of that road and there were options put forward for a skywalk, for median crossings, different things were put forth. Has anything been designed in to accommodate the cross Seward-Meridian traffic that there is with the three schools that are located right in that area,” asked Vice President Tom Bergey.

Bentz noted that planning for the project began in 2006 when Career Tech High School and Fronteras were not yet built. Teeland had already been built along Seward-Meridian Parkway. Bentz said that no additional sidewalks or crossings were included in the project.

“What we’re going to do with the project to help with those further developments is we are going to install underneath the roadway what we call ‘plumbing,’ essentially a bunch of buried conduits so that when the borough is ready to build another signal there perhaps or a crossing of some sort we will have the infrastructure underground already to be able to easily pull cabling and stuff through to build that infrastructure,” said Bentz. “After realizing that there was no safe combinations or safe routes established yet for students to get there, the recommendation was to inform parents teachers and students not to be walking to these schools.”

Board President Ole Larson has daily experiences with the after-school traffic on Seward-Meridian and noted that despite a lack of sidewalks on neighboring streets or crosswalks, students still walk from schools.

“We need to develop a walking plan from the schools to the road and how those kids are going to get across the street or we’re going to have some major incidents that I don’t want to see happen in two years from now or three years from now. Now is that possible that we can do that and incorporate it in this plan?” said Larson. “I’m saying I don’t want our kids to get hurt. Our kids are going to walk no matter what we tell them to do, they’re going to walk across that street and we need to have them safe.”

Bentz noted that the recently prepared report on safe routes for walking to school showed deficiencies beyond just Seward-Meridian Parkway in safe access for students to school and noted that previous plans had been included that were ultimately changed. Board Member Jim Hart suggested that working with the borough on establishing safe walking routes around the three schools would be a more appropriate place for the discussion.

“Things are always evolving, always changing and one project is not the end all be all to every situation. We would never finish,” said Bentz. “There is going to be a need for future projects. We’ve said as much. We’ve also said as much that we don’t think kids should be walking to the school.