Spectrum

No doubt about it, the Bogard Road East Extension (BREE) to the Glenn Highway is causing a lot of angst.

The folks whose neighborhoods and farms will be changed forever have been on pins and needles for many months. People are concerned about school safety, paving over some of our best remaining farmland and a major highway going right through existing subdivisions. Everyone’s concerned about congestion on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, and the danger and frustration associated with slow-moving traffic and impatient drivers. Frankly, it’s a big mess.

After many, many hours of public testimony, both the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission and Assembly refused to select any of the five proposed routes. The planning commission suggested improving existing roads and encouraging community transit. The assembly couldn’t agree on a route, but will try again soon, and I’m sure it will be another hand-wringer. Complicating the decision is there’s no money for construction and we’ve seen many of our “priority” road projects delayed for many years.

BREE may be one of the catalysts that force us to really think long term about what we want our community to look like given our 21st-century circumstances. I think there’s a solution that makes more sense. Whether “we” as a community are willing to make this leap — well, that’s a dodgy proposition. All of us, myself included, are pretty addicted to cheap fossil fuel.

The time has come to put our planning energy, and transportation funding, into a community transit system. Initially, the emphasis should be on a system to connect Palmer and Wasilla, serve the schools and provide places to connect with a future commuter rail system hauling people to Anchorage.

As I see it, here’s the framework we’re operating from:

• The era of cheap fossil fuel is over. Oil is routinely more than $100 a barrel now. Auto gas is predicted to be $4 a gallon by spring, and perhaps $5 a gallon within a year. And we’re entering a recession.

• Locally grown food is becoming increasingly important. The higher costs of energy and transportation will directly affect the cost of food, and we import more than 95 percent of our food as it is. The Mat-Su Borough Assembly and Palmer City Council are already on record saying we need aggressive measures now to preserve farmland and farming.

• The Borough’s Long Range Transportation Plan forecasts that by 2025 — only 17 years away — there will be unacceptable congestion on portions of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, Parks Highway, Bogard Road and Arctic Avenue. This despite the assumption that by 2025 we will have spent more than $500 million making the Palmer-Wasilla Highway four lanes, the Glenn four lanes from the Parks to Palmer-Fishhook and extending Bogard to the Glenn.

• The price tag for widening the Palmer-Wasilla Highway is so high — some say $200 million just for right-of-way acquisition — that most Borough policy-makers think it’s impossible. Even though it’s called a priority, and it will likely not get cheaper, there’s no current effort to plan for four lanes. To continue to diversify our economy and attract high-paying jobs, we need to carefully safeguard the quality of life aspects we all love about this area, like clean water, air and soil; wonderful subsistence, recreational and commercial fishing and hunting; and unparalleled recreational opportunities.

From a human safety perspective, community transit is much safer than driving.

Let’s look to northern Europe and Scandinavia. They have plenty of winter, their communities were not designed around automobiles and gas prices have been high for years. Many communities combine their school and transit buses. Recently, a state transportation planner told me that up to 25 percent of rush-hour congestion is people driving their kids to school. And we’re paying for those buses the kids aren’t using.

There are plenty of other benefits to community transit: less obesity, cleaner air, fewer pollutants heading into our creeks and lakes, maybe even a less hectic pace of life. There are plenty of challenges as well. It’s never easy to kick an addiction.

It’s fiscally irresponsible and unfair to future generations to spend millions in public money on roads that will again be congested in a few years, and then spend more money building a community transit system. Why not just leapfrog to community transit?

I’m heartened because it’s fresh in my mind how people pulled together when Matanuska Electric Association proposed 19th-century technology to address our current power needs. People care a lot about our community and understand that we can learn from the mistakes made in many other communities across the nation and globe.

Almost everyone agrees we need to do something. Funds are tight. How about planning for people, farms, food and safe schools, and not cars?

Mark Masteller is a member of the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission. The opinions expressed here are his own.