State set to talk bypass Wednesday

WASILLA — If you’re wondering why the state thinks we need a road around Wasilla or what it might look like, add this Wednesday meeting to your calendar.

“What we’re going to do is let people know what we’ve come up with to date in terms of our analysis and present the completion of our corridor evaluation and our decision matrix and present a first draft of alternatives,” said project manager Allen Kemplen with the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

The meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. at the fire station on Swanson Avenue downtown. If you want to just catch the presentation from DOT, that starts at 6 p.m.

So what has the state found with its evaluations and matrices?

“I think the most important one is that the project lends itself to being developed incrementally in segments based on the highest needs first,” Kemplen said.

Most “bang for the buck,” he said, would come from a corridor heading around Wasilla to the south starting at Seward Meridian Parkway and ending at Knik-Goose Bay Road.

Eventually, the idea is to connect it back to the Parks somewhere past Wasilla, in Meadow Lakes or farther north on the Parks Highway.

Kemplen said the alternatives presented at the meeting will be “alternatives in terms of where the road could go, the corridor could go, and also alternatives in terms of how to move the project forward.”

He said that while the project was controversial when first proposed in the 1990s, it has since come to be viewed as necessary.

“When it was initially brought up, the biggest group of voices raised in opposition represented businesses along the Parks Highway because they felt that a bypass would weaken their sales,” Kemplen said. “But since then, the growth that’s occurred in the city of Wasilla has been so substantial that Wasilla is now a destination point. It’s no longer just a place on the Parks Highway that people pass by.”

He said the road would help alleviate what has come to be the bigger problem in Wasilla — congestion.

“It’s predicted to get worse. The challenge is the way that the Valley has grown. It’s moved, a lot of the development has moved westward, but your east-west roads, how many do you have?” Kemplen said.

The answer is three: the Parks Highway, the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Bogard Road.

But in terms of corridors to serve the growth south of Wasilla in the Knik/Fairview area — the fastest growing area in the borough for multiple years running — it’s just the Parks. Which means people are using it to get to soccer games and shopping centers, to work and to dental appointments.

“The Parks Highway cannot serve so many purposes. It’s supposed to be a national highway system facility,” he said.

Which, of course, is why the Knik Arm bridge, the long-dreamed-of and planned-for link between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie, won’t eliminate the need for an alternative corridor.

“It doesn’t matter if the Knik Arm crossing is built, what matters is how are you going to meet the need for capacity for those east-west trips through the core area of the Valley,” he said, “especially from the area of fas test growth which is the Knik/Fairview area and points eastward?”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.

What: Meeting to discuss the plan for an alternative highway corridor around Wasilla

When: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, presentation starts at 6 p.m.

Where: Central Mat-Su fire station, Swanson Ave., Wasilla