The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Central Region is expecting a busy construction year, awarding up to $420 million dollars’ worth of construction contracts, including airport, trail and highway improvements.
Shannon McCarthy, Media Liaison, Admin Operations Manager for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spoke with KSRM, saying that there are several projects to happen across the Peninsula, “We’re doing some earthquake repairs. These are really small repairs, but they are important to restore our highways in that pre-November 2018 condition. People are aware of the (old Sterling) Anchor River Bridge. That’s a really old structure. That’s going to be replaced. Obviously, we have lots of work on the Sterling Highway, mile post 45 to 60 is of great interest. Not only are we making that new alignment, but we also will be working on other sections of the highway. We’ll let people know what impacts there are to track, but the impact will be creating the new section of road.”
Several other repairs include many to the Seward Highway. Planned construction projects involve milepost 17 to 22.5 rehabilitation, milepost 37 to 52 passing lanes, highway pavement preservation milepost 36 to 48, and milepost 75 to 90 Ingram Creek to Girdwood Road and bridge rehabilitation, phase III.
McCarthy explains how the DOT determines what projects get chosen for construction, “A lot of times, when the projects start, it gets its start, many times from the community itself from people saying this road needs to be improved. We listen to community, we take a look at what the average daily traffic is. Obviously, the larger highways are going to have more need as people use them frequently. There’s more wear and tear. That works its way through the system. Then, we have to do all of the environmental work, all of the surveying, all the connecting. That can take, especially for federal aid highway projects, which all of these are, seven to ten years to develop. All of that is kind of happening behind the scenes, but all the projects are important. They’ve gotten on our list because there’s a need.”
A majority of construction is scheduled to begin later this spring. Keep up to date with traffic impacts at 511.Alaska.gov.
