new road at Palmer, Alaska

[Stephane Dumas]

I spotted on ACME Mapper some satellite and maps shots of a new road named "Trunk road". http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=61.58810,-149.21987&z=13&t=M Is it a future new alignment of AK-1 to replace part of the Glenn Highway.

[oscar]

I spotted on ACME Mapper some satellite and maps shots of a new road named "Trunk road". http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=61.58810,-149.21987&z=13&t=M Is it a future new alignment of AK-1 to replace part of the Glenn Highway.

Trunk Road is not new. It's been around in more or less its present location since at least the mid-2000s (though perhaps recently widened and straightened), with its own diamond interchange exit off AK 3.

I'm not aware of any plans to realign AK 1 through Palmer. There are many other places where AK 1 has been or badly needs to be realigned (most recently, a project in advanced planning stages east of Soldotna). But not the part through Palmer, which itself was built as a bypass of what is now the Old Glenn Highway. The current STIP shows nothing planned through 2019, and other project listings on the ADOT&PF website don't show any major changes in the offing -- in particular, no plans for an extension to AK 1 northeast of Palmer -- for Trunk Road.

I would instead interpret any recent improvements to Trunk Road as normal suburban road development, to handle local traffic in the fast-growing area around Palmer and Wasilla.