Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities commissioner Mike Barton is planning to embark on a road show in an effort to educate the public about the governor's proposed transportation package.
Speaking Jan. 6 to the Resource Development Council in Anchorage, Barton told members he needs their help in letting the public know the importance of the proposed plans to lay roads to the state's natural resource centers.
"You're aware, as I am, how critical Alaska's roads are to the state's economy and to the resources out there," he said. "Each of the distinctive pieces of Alaska's transportation system interacts with all the other systems. Our mission is to forge ahead and add lanes to what we have and to add roads to what we need."
Gov. Frank Murkowski in mid-December announced the $145 million package, detailing capital projects he'd like to see to unclog roads across the state.
He will send the proposal to the Legislature in the upcoming session, requesting funds for various projects in the Interior, Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna area and in Southeast.
Barton spoke to the RDC about the roads-to-resources portion of the governor's proposal.
Totaling $37 million, the proposed package will fund preliminary engineering and environmental impact statements for two new roads. One is a 50- to 60-mile road from Prudhoe Bay east to Point Thompson, serving the Bullen Point area of potential oil and gas development on state land. The proposed cost is $5 million.
Another project is the proposed Foothills West Road, a new 75-mile road west from the Dalton Highway to the Colville River Delta through the foothills region of the southern North Slope. That road would facilitate access to the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The cost for preliminary engineering and the environmental impact statement is $4 million.
The roads-to-resources package requests $9 million in funding to resurface and upgrade the Dalton Highway to better serve the Prudhoe Bay area. It also requests $2 million to complete an environmental impact statement on the DeLong Mountain port expansion to better serve the Red Dog Mine and other regional mining prospects, as well as local villages in the Interior region.
Included in the package is $17 million for bridges, located along the Richardson and Elliott highways.
Barton also spoke briefly about other improvement plans included in the governor's transportation package, including a $21 million request for improvements to relieve congestion on the roads between Palmer and Wasilla, and truck routes in Midtown Anchorage that would serve the construction of the proposed gas pipeline.
