Trunk Road roundabout set for Tuesday opening

MAT-SU — The Valley’s first and only roundabout intersection opens Tuesday on Trunk Road.

Project Engineer John Waisanen said the state Department of Transportation held a meeting last week to discuss the intersection change and that the meeting was both well attended — almost shockingly so for a public meeting — and without rancor.

“There were probably over 100 people there,” Waisanen said. “A lot of people came out and a lot of people were seeking information.”

He said project managers projected graphics onto the wall of the meeting room, showing how the intersection works and how people can navigate a roundabout. That seemed to calm some fears, he said.

Those videos are available on the Web at alaskaroundabouts.com/Trunk where visitors can also look at maps of the project.

The day before the intersection opens, DOT will open it up so local emergency responders and other professional organizations can give it a try. Waisanen said that the intersection will handle even the biggest of the big rigs.

Assistant Project Engineer Joe Homme said that roundabouts are simply safer than four-way-stop-style intersections. Accidents are less frequent and less serious.

“The types of accidents are slow-speed same-direction crashes as opposed to head-on or T-bone crashes,” he said.

This particular roundabout is just north of where Trunk hits the Parks Highway. It’s in place to deal with the highway’s frontage roads and access routes to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center as well as the driveway to the redesigned and rebuilt park-and-ride lot.

It is a part of a much larger project to straighten and widen Trunk Road.

The new Trunk will follow an almost entirely different path from the old one, meeting the Palmer-Wasilla Highway just east of where the road does now. From Parks Highway to Palmer-Wasilla Highway it will be a four-lane divided road with bike trails and a 45 mph speed limit. The speed limit in the roundabout will be 15 mph.

After the Palmer-Wasilla Highway the road will eventually shrink to two lanes and meet back up with the old alignment before terminating at Palmer Fishhook Road.

Homme said the road will remain closed past the roundabout until next year. They will shut the project down for the winter and finish it in the spring.

“We will keep traffic on the old alignment for the duration of the winter,” Homme said.

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