The Alaska Department of Transportation is pondering changes to Glacier Highway in Lemon Creek, but before construction begins in 2017, engineers want the public\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n
The Glacier Highway Bike and Pedestrian Improvements Project is intended to help cyclists and walkers, but it\u2019ll bring changes for drivers, too. Those include a new traffic signal at Davis Avenue and a roundabout on Renninger Street, which connects Dzantik\u2019i Heeni Middle School to Glacier Highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really simple goal, but it\u2019s not simple in achieving,\u201d project manager Chuck Tripp said of the idea of improving walking and cycling along Glacier Highway in Lemon Creek.<\/p>\n
With Lemon Creek\u2019s truck traffic, 45-mph speed limit and the number of cars that use the road, \u201cyou just can\u2019t throw a crosswalk across a road like that,\u201d Tripp said. \u201cYou have to engineer crossings.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those crossings is earmarked for Glacier Highway near Walmart. Tripp said the closure of that store \u201chas an impact, but not as much as you would think.\u201d The state is anticipating that the store won\u2019t stay closed forever, and there\u2019s already enough pedestrian demand from bus passengers who get on and off near Walmart. That traffic isn\u2019t expected to entirely go away, even after the store\u2019s closure last week.<\/p>\n
A roundabout at Renninger Street would allow school-bound kids to cross Glacier Highway more safely, and improvements to crosswalks and medians throughout Lemon Creek would help them reach that roundabout.<\/p>\n
A traffic light planned for Davis Avenue (it\u2019s the intersection near the Lemon Creek bridge) would help traffic flow in and out of Concrete Avenue, which sees truck traffic and plenty of cars bound for Breeze-In.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you coordinate that traffic signal with the one at Anka (next to Wells Fargo), you can create gaps … that allow people to make lefts off Concrete Way,\u201d Tripp said.<\/p>\n
Lemon Creek residents and others have almost two months to offer comments on the plan. Comments can be emailed to Jill Taylor at jill.taylor@alaska.gov through April 1, and the state has planned a public meeting to discuss the project. That meeting takes place March 3 in Gruening Park Recreation Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska Department of Transportation is pondering changes to Glacier Highway in Lemon Creek, but before construction begins in 2017, engineers want the public\u2019s ideas. The Glacier Highway Bike and Pedestrian Improvements Project is intended to help cyclists and walkers, but it\u2019ll bring changes for drivers, too. Those include a new traffic signal at Davis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":33601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33600"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}