Travelers cautioned about Parks site

Since July, a 10-mile-long construction zone has been slowing traffic along the Parks Highway from Mile 57 just south of Houston to Mile 67 north of White's Crossing.

Pilot cars have been leading travelers through the construction zone during the day. Workers have been knocking off each day at 7:30 p.m., leaving an open road for travelers, but John Sorenson, the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) project engineer in charge of the job, said night travelers should obey the reduced speed limits and exercise caution.

Just because the pilot cars aren't there and the job site is shut down, doesn't mean travelers should drive at highway speeds. Construction zones require caution whether they appear active or not.

"You might think 'There's no construction at night, why am I driving 35?' The reason why is that there may be some hazards out there that aren't taken care of," Sorenson said. "It's kind of like going through a half-built house. There's things that are not completed and there may be hazards."

Sorenson compared the construction zone to an unfinished stairwell without handrails or traction pads on the stairs.

Some of the guard rails along the Parks have been removed to accommodate heavy equipment traffic. Others are temporary concrete guards instead of the shock-absorbing steel guard rails of a finished highway. The concrete guards are not the sort of thing to collide with at high speeds, Sorenson said.

Highway striping also takes a beating during the job.

"The center-line striping is pretty bad right now, and I admit that," Sorenson said. "We can't really stripe right now because it's so muddy. We're sweeping it all the time, and we generally wash it every day. And we put out extra cones where there are hazards."

The job isn't scheduled to be finished until September of next year, and Sorenson said he expects work to stop for the season sometime during the last two weeks of October.

Winter travelers will have the same two-lane highway they drove last year. Sorenson said he planned to put the stripes down as late as he could, so they won't be erased by the heavy equipment on the job site.

"We will get 'em down. We've always gotten 'em down before," he said.

Ten miles of striping will cost between $15,000-$20,000. The total cost of the project is about $18.5 million -- about $6.5 million is going into bridges at the Little Susitna River, Lilly Creek and over the Alaska Railroad at White's Crossing.

Kathy Houston, owner of Alaskan Host Bed and Breakfast, at Mile 66.5, said her drop-in customers have all but stopped since work on the project began.

"When you're in line with all of these cars you just keep going, it's hard to pull off," Houston said. "In a normal summer, we would get drop-ins. This year, I haven't had one drop-in all summer."

Alaskan Host currently has a sign just off the Parks to catch travelers' eyes. When the road is realigned and lifted over the railroad, Houston's business will be along a frontage road.

She expects she won't have many drop-in customers in the future, but also said she looks forward to offering a quieter place for customers with reservations to stay.

Houston moved to the area in 1991 and said she appreciates the roads in the Susitna Valley, even with the gargantuan machines.

"We have pretty good road service out here. I'd rather drive out here than in Anchorage any day," Houston said.

Jim Faust, who purchased Sunny's CafŽ at Mile 69 last month, said that even though he's not in the middle of the construction zone his business has been slowed. Faust said when the pilot cars release their herd, drivers tend to speed up and pass right by Sunny's.

Faust is a retired heavy equipment operator from Clayton, Idaho, and said he appreciates the road work and the drivers he's seen in the area. "People out here are more attentive and they're thinking about the other guy," he said.