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Aug 26, 2023

DOT&PF is seeking public comments for new 4

Friday, August 11, 2023 at 11:38 AM By Jasz Garrett Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities’ (DOT&PF) hosted an open house at the Juneau Arts and Culture

Friday, August 11, 2023 at 11:38 AM

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities’ (DOT&PF) hosted an open house at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center (JACC) Thursday night to discuss the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).

The announcement of the draft STIP started a 45-day public comment period, in which the public may review the planned projects, and submit questions, comments, and concerns about the 2024-2027 plan to the department through Sept. 3, 2023.

The public is encouraged to review and leave comments on the document at dot.alaska.gov/stip and public comments may also be submitted via text at 855-925-2801 or via phone voice message at 855-925-2801, code 2191.

This year's STIP added new interactive tools for the public to use and DOT&PF said they are receiving more public comments than ever before.

They attributed the increased engagement to be a result of providing PDFs, Excel, interactive tables, a dashboard, a map, and videos in motion to view online.

On average, DOT&PF receives a total of 20-30 public comments, and this year they have exceeded 100.

The new STIP also allows the department and the public to analyze how investments are being made—by geographic region, legislative district, mode, or by corridor. Marie Heidemann, DOT&PF project manager, explained how projects are divided into different categories.

"It comes in a wide variety of flavors, like eight to 10, different flavors, each with different eligibilities, restrictions, opportunities," she said. "And some of those are even further allocated, as a state program, state delivered program, the state then also can develop programs to work with those different funding eligibilities. So, there are a lot of different avenues and paths to get projects funded."

Below: $6,384,253,216 is the total fund for the draft 2024-2027 STIP. This number is mainly federally funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and is divided into sustainability, economic vitality, resiliency, safety, and state of good repair. (Photo credit Jasz Garrett/KINY)

Brett Wells, a design project manager with the southcoast region, gave details on the Klondike Highway project.

"Its main goal is to really revitalize the corridor. We're going to be going through looking at all the current issues and concerns that we know about," he said. "Looking at geotechnical concerns, the state of the roadway, as well as bringing in a lot of community interest and seeing what we can incorporate with our available funding. And try and really rebuild that corridor and get the maximum life out of it that we can."

The first construction project for the Klondike will roll out in 2026.

Kirk Miller, southcoast region preconstruction engineer in charge of design and environmental, spoke on Ketchikan's projects.

Multiple sections of Tongass Highway have been under development since the early 2000s. DOT&PF estimated the development began in 2006. Miller said it's a primary focus.

"They're very difficult projects, very congested corridors, and very expensive projects and they take time to develop. We are advertising a project for actual construction in about a week here and that's what we call South Tongass," Miller said. "That extends from essentially Hoadley Creek Bridge to roughly the Second Avenue. We also got another active project in Ketchikan that is under physical construction and that's the Waterstreet Trestle number two, and it's nearing completion this fall."

There's also a preventative maintenance project from the ferry terminal to Ward Creek and another project to replace the Ward Creek bridge.

This is the biggest project in the works for Ketchikan according to Miller.

"The Ketchikan viaducts project, and that one's really complicated. It's about 1000 feet of structural steel and overlaid with concrete and pavement," Miller said. "And we'll be going underneath that in several phases, fixing up what we can underneath, and we'll be reverting to the top side, but it's going to take us until 2028 to get all that done."

Christopher Goins, the southcoast regional director for DOT responded to the public's concerns of backlog.

"We're engineers, but we're humans too. We really want to make sure that we're delivering the right projects for the communities. And we want to understand the needs. We want to make sure that we're getting the needs that these communities are identifying...we're getting them right so we're developing the right projects for these communities. And that's what I mean by challenging us," Goins stated. "Let us know if we're not. Let us know that. If it needs to happen sooner or later, let us know that too. We want to have those kinds of conversations. And if there's questions out there of why we're doing a project this way or that way, those are things that we need to know. We want to hear from the public."

Goins plans to visit Ketchikan in October to meet with leaders and others if they are interested to have a conversation on construction planning.

The conversation will be held with the intent to "keep Alaska moving".

"We anticipate delivering close to 200 plus million dollars to Ketchikan over the next seven years. And there are critical projects on that such as the viaduct project close to the tunnel and making sure that that we're getting that project out and taking care of the needs on that bridge," Goins explained. "And so we're bringing in a contractor to marry up with our design team during the design process to really be able to do that. And there's a whole host of other projects that are in the STIP that we are really targeting for that community and many others...We really want to make sure that we take care of the people of Ketchikan and we keep business moving while also fixing a lot of the challenges in the infrastructure that we see there, which many of these projects will do."

Below: Ketchikan projects. (Photo credit Jasz Garrett/KINY)

Below: Klondike Highway project. (Photo credit Jasz Garrett/KINY)

The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) has a long-range plan currently being developed. The plan for terminals is to add new terminals for MV Lituya, mooring improvements, shoreside facilities surveys, design/construct/lease terminals, mooring dolphins, and cathodic protection. The plan for vessels is a Tustumena replacement vessel, and a mainliner replacement vessel, plans to conduct fleet condition surveys, design/construct/lease vessels, and maintenance of vessels.

Recent discretionary grant awards include $16.5 million for the Juneau Douglas North Crossing which is currently in a PEL study, $1.6 million for the planning study on the Bridge Investment Program for Sargent Creek and Russian River in Kodiak, and $10 million for the planning and design only of the Kake Access Road Improvements.

For the Juneau Douglas North Crossing, the construction year is estimated to be in 2030 and DOT&PF is partnered with the City and Borough of Juneau.