DOT

Design work is continuing on the Sterling Highway Mile 45 to 60 project, otherwise known as the Cooper Landing bypass. The Department of Transportation’s schedule calls for work to begin in 2020, with the project open to traffic in 2025.

Katherine Wood, public outreach lead with HDR, the engineering firm doing the design for the project, gave an update in Cooper Land on Feb. 25. The project will be tackled in five phases. Phase one is improving the existing highway at either end of the project. Phase two is constructing a bridge over Juneau Creek.

Phase three is creating an embankment on the east end of the project where the new road will leave the existing highway near the Quartz Creek Road intersection and head up to the Juneau Creek crossing. Phase four is constructing the new highway to the west of Juneau Creek to where it rejoins the existing highway at Mile 56. Phase five is finish work — signage, striping and creating a new trailhead for Reserection Pass Trail.

“Our overall schedule really hasn’t changed. The west piece of the on-alignment part of the project will be bid to a contractor this fall to enable construction to start next year. And the east will be bid in 2021,” Wood said.

Residents in Cooper Landing got an update on the planned bypass highway project Tuesday night. In the works for decades, the Cooper Landing bypass would reroute a portion of the Sterling Highway to the north of Cooper Landing and away from current path that closely, sometimes fatally, follows the Kenai River.

It will be a couple of seasons and result in enough delays and inconvenience that by the time the Kenai Spur Highway rehabilitation project from Soldotna to Kenai is done, it will be a welcome relief. That’s because the project will extend five-lane blacktop the entire distance between the Twin Cities.

Commuters on the east portion of Kalifornsky Beach Road may have already noticed, but all drivers should be aware that the temporary traffic signals that are being installed are not the standard type that can detect stopped and waiting cars.

According to the Alaska DOT project "Navigator" website, these lights are on a timer, not detection, so the usual signal patterns drivers may be accustomed to have changed.