Regional Boards > Northwest
Alaska
Kniwt:
Anchorage Daily News reports that Denali Park Road will continue to be closed at Mile 43 until 2026.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2023/06/05/denali-park-road-not-fully-reopening-until-2026-after-bridge-construction-pushed-back-a-year/
--- Quote ---The 92-mile road through Denali National Park and Preserve will remain closed near the halfway point for another three years due to newly discovered construction delays in the area of a treacherous landslide.
Park officials closed the Denali Park Road west of the Pretty Rocks Landslide in August 2021, saying it was no longer feasible to safely maintain. The road provides the only vehicular access into the 6-million-acre park. Buses carrying visitors into the park now turn around at Mile 43.
Road construction initially expected to wrap up in 2025 is now not expected to be complete until 2026. Park officials say the delay stems from a combination of a long winter that delayed the start of construction and the discovery that crews will need to extract more than two times as much clay as originally expected from the Pretty Rocks area.
The road began slumping in recent years at Mile 45 because of the landslide, which began moving more rapidly in 2014, amid increasing temperatures and heavy rainfall events.
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Alex:
Alaska will be getting two more DDI's.
The east end of Johansen Expressway at SR 2 (Steese Expressway) will be converted from an at-grade intersection. Here is the project web page.
Planners finalizing design for Fairbanks expressways’ new intersection
--- Quote ---A new $81 million intersection to improve traffic flow and safety is being designed for Fairbanks’ Steese and Johansen Expressways.
The design has been scoped by Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities engineers since 2018, but requires local municipalities to grant the state planning authority. It’s up for a public hearing this week before the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, but it is missing a trail underpass the borough and other groups have asked for.
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South into Anchorage, the diamond interchange joining SR 1 (Seward Highway) with O'Malley Road will be converted to a DDI. The project web page.
Set to start this summer, $130M Seward Highway project in South Anchorage faces renewed scrutiny
--- Quote ---The Anchorage Assembly and some community members want the state to reconsider a $130 million Seward Highway expansion project that has long been in the works.
After years of planning, construction on the O’Malley Road to Dimond Boulevard project is expected to start late this summer, with completion in 2025, state transportation planners say.
Plans for the 1.5-mile stretch of highway in South Anchorage include raising it to create a roundabout interchange linking Scooter Avenue with Academy Drive; adding the equivalent of two lanes with a new northbound lane plus frontage and ramp improvements; and constructing the state’s second “diverging diamond” interchange with criss-crossing lanes at the O’Malley underpass.
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The first DDI in the state is located along SR 1 (Glenn Highway) at Muldoon Road.
Quillz:
I've been on that DDI and it really does flow nicely. I'm familiar with that intersection in Fairbanks and it never struck me as terribly crowded, but any improvements are nice. Alaska in general seems to have a lot of really modernized junctions, which isn't something I was expecting given the low population. Lots of roundabouts in Anchorage, for example.
Road Hog:
A relative of mine posted this very short Facebook video of an Alaskan highway, and I'm impressed at first glance of its engineering. Somewhere in the Fairbanks area is all I know. (She likes Filipino music loud, so apologies in advance)
https://www.facebook.com/cathy.spinks.1/videos/677289514292327
Quillz:
That doesn't look like the Fairbanks area. Fairbanks is a subarctic area and doesn't really have the thick forest cover you see. That looks like somewhere well to the south. A street blade was seen but I couldn't make out the name. This might be the Richardson Highway heading southeast away from Fairbanks, as that reaches into the more boreal forest this looks like.
Alaska has pretty good roads in general. Anchorage utilizes a lot of roundabouts and I'm seeing diverging diamonds appear. For the most part, only the rural roads are unpaved. Most of the significant highways are paved and never give me any issues.
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