Friday, the Alaska Department of Transportation announced that they had selected an alternative route for a heavily traveled section of the Sterling Highway near Cooper Landing.
Anyone who has driven the Sterling Highway near Cooper Landing, during the summer tourism and fishing season, knows that it can get very congested.
“The congestion definitely peaks in the summer – June, July during the Sockeye runs,” said Kelly Petersen, the project manager for DOT.
“You get to milepost 45 and the highway just, it violates your expectancy of what the highway should look like,” said Petersen.
It’s curvy, narrow and eroding in some areas. That’s why the Alaska Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration have identified an alternative for the section of the Sterling Highway from mile post 45 to 60. They call it the ‘G South Alternative’.
“49 percent of the curves on this section are too sharp. 14 out of 15 miles do not meet the standards for ‘clear zone’, which is an area adjacent to the traveled way where a car could recover if it loses control. It should be 30 feet and we have nothing out there. All of the shoulders are too narrow,” said Petersen.
Petersen says all those factors contribute to safety issues along the stretch. She says the project will basically go around Cooper Landing.
“'G South' Skirts the Cooper Landing Community to the North and it crosses the Kenai River on a new bridge and it reconnects near milepost 52. The remainder of the highway will be rebuilt,” said Petersen.
She says the alternative route will avoid impacts to Resurrection Pass Trail. The new route was selected after reviewing hundreds of public comments in April and May 2015. A Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision is anticipated in 2016 and the project will enter the design phase, and construction could begin in 2018.
