Trails, roundabouts among ideas at transportation fair

PALMER — Of the many maps laid out on tables at Tuesday’s Mat-Su Transportation Fair, none could compare to the one on the Knik-Goose Bay Road Reconstruction table.

The map showed eight roundabouts — two roundabouts per mile — proposed between the Parks Highway and Mack Road. This isn’t the final plan. The state Department of Transportation hasn’t settled on an alternative. The roundabout-palooza map is one proposed by the city of Wasilla.

Another alternative, one DOT proposed, includes a six-lane divided highway to Mack and then four lanes from there to Vine Road.

There is plenty of time to settle on a design, though — the project isn’t expected to be constructed until 2019.

Here’s another one you might not have heard: DOT expects to buy up right of way for the expansion of the Glenn Highway starting this November. The project won’t begin construction until 2016, but it includes adding lanes, shoulders and turn pockets from Mile 34 — the interchange with the Parks Highway — to Mile 42 — downtown Palmer.

Speaking of Palmer, over on the other side of the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center’s indoor turf, Saran Jansen was talking about the Safe Routes to Schools program.

“The whole idea is you have safe routes to promote healthy activities with your kids,” Jansen said.

Seventeen schools are on the list for potential sites. Program staff will be out doing reconnaissance — figuring out where there are pathways and where lights are needed.

Then they’ll have a plan for how to make a route that people can walk from their homes to school and they can start looking for money to make it happen.

The city of Palmer is already working on its plan, said Sandra Garley with the city. One thing they’ve heard is that the school sites themselves might need some work.

“Even if there is a safe route to get from my school, the school parking lot is buses and cars,” she said was the sentiment from a lot of parents.

She said it’s great that the city and the borough are both looking at the issue.

“It will require a cooperation between the schools and community, but it’s very exciting,” she said.

All-told the fair had booths for dozens of projects and agencies.

One of the lesser-visited tables was an important one for the city of Houston. Expected to be underway soon with bids due to be awarded any day, it would spend $2 million upgrading Hawk Lane.

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