State, Wasilla talk couplet at April 4 open house

WASILLA — As the city goes around and around with state transportation planners, a long-awaited project to help alleviate downtown traffic congestion is moving forward.

The public is invited to weigh-in on plans at a Department of Transportation and Public Facilities open house about the couplet project from 6 to 8 p.m., April 4 at Fire Station No. 61, 101 W. Swanson Ave. The presentation includes a project history and public input is encouraged.

Design work for the Wasilla Main Street Rehabilitation Project (aka the Wasilla couplet) continues as the city and state work to secure rights of way to construct the project, which would create a circular traffic flow centered at Main Street.

“That’s where it’s at now,” Mayor Verne Rupright said. “It’s at the design and right of way acquisition phase. We got the $5 million (for that work) last year.”

That $5 million from the state is the first part of the estimated $26 million undertaking, which would turn Main Street into a one-way avenue south from Bogard Road to the Parks Highway. To compensate, Yenlo Street will become one-way northbound and extend north to Bogard Road and south of the Parks Highway to Talkeetna Street. Although the state has a financial buy-in, funding for construction will come from federal sources.

Routing traffic through downtown Wasilla will accomplish several goals, Rupright said — most importantly, alleviating some congestion at the intersection of Main Street and the Parks Highway.

“We’re looking for this to do a couple of things,” he said. “No. 1, it gives us (with Yenlo Street) another north-south corridor through the city other than just KGB. There will be more on-street parking for the core development. It’s a wider boulevard, and you won’t get traffic stacking problems on the highway.”

That traffic stacking, particularly at the Main and Parks intersection, has worsened over the years, Rupright said, especially when trains running on the tracks just south of the highway.

“When those lights change and you get to that (first) stop sign on Main Street, it backs up into the highway, especially during rush hour,” he said. “It happens a lot. Ultimately, the plan is for (Main Street) to be widened to three lanes and have lamps along it so it looks more like a Wasilla downtown core.”

Because the state owns Main Street, the city is limited in what it can do with that short, but important, stretch of road, the mayor said.

Creating a couplet, an idea that’s been around at least since 2006, is also important to the city’s overall efforts to create a more hometown-feeling downtown district, Rupright said.

“We think this works toward that whole plan on that end of the grid,” he said. “You have to cross those cross streets as well of Nelson, Swanson and Herning. Those will continue to be two-way. Overall, it will slow traffic down and give it a more boulevard effect. You can park and go do your shopping, stroll through the area and hit the businesses there.”

City and state planners have previously set construction to begin by about 2015. That’s a timetable Rupright said he’d like to hasten. The real benefit comes in extending Yenlo Street, he said. By stretching Yenlo Street to Bogard and south beyond the Parks Highway to Talkeetna Street, Rupright said it is expected to spread traffic out and help reduce congestion.

“The bulk of our population is to the south of us, so the bulk of our traffic comes from there,” he said. “Hopefully, that will alleviate a lot of that standstill. This will give us different accesses across that railroad grid.”

But that doesn’t mean a couplet project that overall involves about four miles of road is a silver bullet that will cure Wasilla’s traffic concerns, Rupright said.

“KGB needs to be widened, and it should’ve been widened years ago,” he said.

With the planning and right of way acquisition phase nearing completion, it’s time for the public to weigh in on the plan, Rupright said.

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.