DOT plans for years of Seward Highway construction

A stretch of damaged guardrail on the Seward Highway at milepost 94 on the south (Turnagain Arm) side of the road, as seen on April 1st. (Photo by Chase Berenson)

By Chase Berenson

TNews Staffwriter

The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT) has been receiving bids for multiple projects in March that have potential to impact Girdwood residents and frequent Seward Highway drivers.  Two different projects both had due dates for bids last month: a project to install variable speed limit signs and a project to resurface the pavement of the Highway.

The announcement of these projects comes just weeks after the controversial Safer Seward Highway project public comment period ended on February 27th.

One of the two projects is looking for vendors to plan and design variable speed limit (VSL) signs for the Seward Highway from milepost 90 to milepost 118, or approximately from Girdwood in the south to Rabbit Creek Road in the north.  This encompasses the entire area of the Safer Seward Highway project plus nine additional miles.  VSL signs allow the DOT to modify the speed limit of the Seward Highway electronically, particularly in adverse conditions such as winter weather.  This work will be paired with VSL installations on the Richardson Highway near Fairbanks.

The DOT claims that this project will reduce car crashes caused by winter weather because the speed limit will be dynamically adjusted based on weather and road conditions in real-time.  The VSL installation project will also integrate real-time data from the DOT’s Road Weather Information System (RWIS) sites and traffic count stations.  During the design phase of the project, the DOT intends to install four more traffic count stations and multiple new RWIS sites to ensure there is enough data to make educated decisions along the entire VSL section of the Highway.  The DOT anticipates installing at least 16 VSL signs in the 28-mile stretch of the Seward Highway.  This project is modeled after a similar VSL project on Interstate 80 in Wyoming.

Within this section of highway, the speed limit is currently a fixed number which does not change due to conditions.  From milepost 90 to approximately milepost 100, the speed limit is 65 miles per hour (MPH); from approximately milepost 100 to approximately milepost 118, the speed limit is 55 MPH.  This speed limit does not change with the weather or road conditions, however even if driving under the posted speed limit drivers could still by cited by the Anchorage Police Department for violating 13 AAC 02.275(a) which states, “No person may drive a vehicle at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent considering the traffic, roadway, and weather conditions.”

The Seward Highway speed limit sign at milepost 90 that drivers pass when they leave Girdwood driving north, as seen on April 1. (Photo by Chase Berenson)

This project will include many phases of work, including planning, design, public involvement, speed study, utility coordination, and others.  After two years of project planning and design, construction is scheduled to begin on May 15th, 2028.  As of April 1st, there is no publicly available information on which companies submitted bids for this work nor for how much they bid.

The other Seward Highway project is looking for companies to resurface the pavement of the Seward Highway from milepost 90 to milepost 99.  This work is outside the geographic extent of the larger Safer Seward Highway project, and is fully encompassed within the VSL project area.  In addition to resurfacing the Seward Highway itself, this project will also resurface the Indian to Girdwood Bike Path, more commonly known as the Bird-to-Gird, within the same area of Highway mileposts 90 to 99.  More than simply resurfacing the pavement of the road and path, this project will also include repairs to culverts and upgrades to guardrails and signs along the Highway.

Prior to the submission of bids, the DOT had estimated that this project would cost between $10,000,000 and $20,000,000.  The project is federally funded.  This project received three bids, ranging from $12.6 million to $15.8 million.  The lowest bidder was Granite Construction, which is headquartered in California with an office in Anchorage and is one of the 25 largest construction companies in the US.  The DOT judges bids on a variety of criteria in addition to just the lowest price, and the DOT has not yet announced which company will win the project.  This project has a shorter turnaround time than the VSL project, as the project’s completion date is scheduled for June 30th, 2027.

In addition to these two projects, during the open house for the Safer Seward Highway project in Girdwood in January the audience was told that this summer the DOT was planning to add a turn lane at the intersection of Chugach State Park’s McHugh Creek Trailhead and to perform rockfall/icefall mitigation at milepost 113, the site where traffic is currently rerouted away from the rockface as is traditional in springtime.

Between the VSL installation, the pavement resurfacing, and the two Safer Seward Highway projects this summer, drivers will likely be facing more years of summer construction lane closures and traffic delays.