State road project is now borough's

Bogard to be extended to Glenn Hwy.

October 28, 2005

DARRELL L. BREESE\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - The wheels of government turn slowly, but the wheels on an increasing number of vehicles on the highways and byways of the Mat-Su Borough are moving faster as its population grows.

The need for new roads to handle east/west traffic flow has led borough officials to begin the process of taking control of a project from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities that will extend Bogard Road to the Glenn Highway.

Due to the busy schedule of the state construction crews and the need to expedite the projects, DOT and the borough will enter into an agreement to transfer responsibility for design, environmental review, right-of-way acquisition and construction of these projects. In turn, the state of Alaska will transfer $14.405 million in general funds to the borough.

In order for the borough to take control of the state public works project, however, the assembly must approve the assumption of all responsibilities relating to the $12.905-million Bogard extension. Also included in the ordinance is the acceptance of $1.5 million that will be used to construct the extension of Seldon Road from Lucille Street to Church Road.

The projects are part of Gov. Frank Murkowski's $108-million community transportation package, which was designed to alleviate traffic congestion. The two projects make up the lion's-share portion of the $21 million of state money dedicated to Mat-Su roads; the remaining money will go toward completing the environmental process needed for the Palmer-Wasilla Highway expansion project.

The advantage of using state money for the transportation improvements, according to the governor's office, is that it is faster than the federal process for design, environmental and right-of-way acquisition. The federal rule book leads to long project timelines, sometimes taking nearly a decade from beginning to end. When a project has significant issues to overcome, the use of state dollars can significantly accelerate a project and lead to transportation improvements in a much shorter time frame.

Transferring management of the projects to the oversight of the borough is intended to accelerate the projects beyond the state's pace for completion.

The proposed transfer of responsibility has left assembly member Betty Vehrs with several questions she wants answered before voting on the action Tuesday.

&#8220What will happen if there are cost overruns? Who will be responsible for the roads when they are complete? And what guarantees are there that the funding will arrive if we take control of the project?” Vehrs said. &#8220Those are all questions that I want answers to before I will be able to vote to approve the projects.”

Brad Sworts, Mat-Su area planner with DOT, had the answers to the questions Vehrs posed.

&#8220Once the transfer-of-responsibility agreement is in place, every aspect of the project will belong to the borough,” Sworts said. &#8220We will provide DOT oversight on the spending and design standards, but the borough will be responsible for the design, environmental studies and completion of the project and then they will own the road and it will be their responsibility to maintain the roads.”

The transfer-of-responsibility arrangement between DOT and the borough is nothing new. They have partnered in the past in the Pave and Trade program, in which the two agencies exchanged road-improvement work for smaller projects across the borough.

According to Sworts, the state has entered into similar transfer-of-responsibility agreements with the Municipality of Anchorage and the Kodiak Island Borough.

&#8220This will be the first transfer as part of the governor's community transportation project,” Sworts said. &#8220But [DOT] has done cooperative projects with the borough in the past, like our Pave and Trade program.”

Vehrs accepts the fact that the borough will have to take a more assertive role in the future to get the road projects it wants completed.

&#8220With the elimination of federal earmarks and the tightening of the belt statewide, it looks to me that if we want to see road projects like this in the future, that we will have to do them ourselves,” Vehrs said. &#8220All of the road projects we want in the Valley have been slowed down or moved back as the flow of funding has been limited from state and federal coffers. It's going to be up to us to come through with funding to get them done.”

Sworts said the Seldon Road project will receive state money, but is a borough project.

&#8220We'll still make sure that DOT standards are met, but other than that, we have no control over it.” Sworts said.

Contact Darrell L. Breese at 352-2267 or darrell.breese@

frontiersman.com.