Copyright Anchorage Daily News
WASILLA — A major road overhaul slated to start next year will convert Wasilla’s downtown corridor into a pair of one-way streets designed to quickly filter traffic, replace a series of stop sign intersections with new traffic signals, and add dedicated bike lanes. The project will change Main Street to three southbound-only lanes and move all northbound traffic two blocks east to Yenlo Street, which runs parallel to the Carrs shopping center and Kaladi Brothers Coffee, according to design documents. Yenlo will also be extended slightly north to connect with Bogard Road across the street from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, and south to cross the Parks Highway and railroad tracks at a new signal, meeting Talkeetna Street, the design shows. A final new extension will link Talkeetna with Knik-Goose Bay Road just north of the Benteh Nuutah Valley Primary Care Center, the documents show. Construction, which is scheduled to start next summer, will likely stretch into 2027, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities officials told the Wasilla City Council at a regular meeting Monday. The plan does not alter traffic flow or lanes on the Parks Highway, they said. Under the plan, drivers traveling north toward the Parks Highway on Knik-Goose Bay Road will shift onto the one-way Yenlo and Talkeetna connector just after Benteh Nuutah, the design shows. A 0.3-mile dedicated bike lane is planned for both the Main Street and Yenlo corridors north of the Parks Highway, with sidewalks on both sides of the street. Dual-use, nonmotorized paths will run along the west side of the new Talkeetna-Yenlo connector between the Parks Highway and the project’s Knik Goose Bay Road starting point at its intersection with the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Railroad Avenue will be newly blocked and no longer connect at Talkeetna due to railroad crossing safety requirements. Drivers will need to use alternate routes to access businesses along that road, transportation officials told the council. Four new traffic signals will be installed as part of the project, replacing stop sign intersections, officials said in an interview. The federally funded project is expected to cost up to $70 million, they said. Deeply rutted and littered with heaves and patched potholes, Main Street is notorious among locals for long backups at the Parks Highway intersection and a four-way stop choke point next to the Wasilla post office at Swanson Avenue. Project construction will kick off next summer with ditching and utility relocation along both Main Street and Yenlo, said Edith McKee, a contracted project manager with Anchorage-based HDR. Other work will include clearing land and preparing the new connector road cut-throughs on Yenlo, officials said. Work is expected to cause headaches for businesses and drivers along Main Street, as crews temporarily use detours or block some driveways during utility work, officials said. Traffic delays will escalate as full construction begins, they said. “We aren’t blessed with as many backup roads as the Lower 48 is, so there are impacts that are going to happen,” state transportation department project manager Chris Bentz said in an interview. “Businesses and residents who traverse the area are gonna see daily impacts, not unlike what you see on any other DOT job.” About 8,200 drivers travel Main Street each day, according to state traffic data. That’s about 17 times more traffic than moved along the corridor when state officials first proposed a traffic flow overhaul more than 30 years ago, the data shows. The update stalled for decades due to local government changes and population growth that outpaced the state’s planning timeline, Bentz and McKee said. For example, a solution created in 2001 called for updating Main Street only, they said, but by the time planners were ready to move forward, the schematic no longer fit the area’s needs. “For a period of time in the 2010 to 2012 era, we were growing out here in the Valley at about 6% per year,” Bentz said. “You compound that over 20 years — if we assume that growth continues — that’s a whole lot of traffic that changed what we originally evaluated.” The construction plan is part of a series of recent updates near Wasilla’s downtown area. A traffic flow project on the northern section of Knik-Goose Bay Road was completed last year, and two more widening projects are planned for the road’s southern segments. A major resurfacing project along Bogard Road, completed this summer, smoothed deep rutting along the heavily used connector. The city of Wasilla has also completed major road paving projects in the area, according to documents presented to the council Monday. Since 2021, the city has newly paved 61 road segments totaling more than 10.8 miles, the documents show. Another 2.9 miles of paving is scheduled for this year.
