Seward Highway

The Alaska Energy Authority plans to install between 10 and 14 electric chargers along the Railbelt, from Homer and Seward to Fairbanks.

The corporation is looking for companies to make those charging stations and sites to host them. It has about $1 million to put toward the project, part of Alaska’s share of a 2017 settlement with Volkswagen over a Diesel emissions scandal.

A Fairbanks resident died in an accident yesterday on the Seward Highway.

The Alaska State Troopers identified 31-year-old Allen Solomon as the victim in a fatal collision at highway Mile 30, ear Moose Pass. The report said Solomon drove his car into the rear end of a Department of Transportation and Public Facilities road grader, which was plowing at the time, shortly after 1:30 p.m. 

The Silvertip Maintenance Station may be small but it covers a well-traveled, 60-mile swath of the Seward Highway, stretching from Moose Pass up through Turnagain Pass and the 17-mile Hope Highway.

Facing a dwindling budget, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities closed the station last winter and relied on neighboring stations to pick up the slack. But an outpouring of pushback from local travelers and Soldotna Republican Sen. Peter Micciche has prompted the state to reopen the station, promising a restoration of full-time plowing and road maintenance to the area this winter.

A traffic accident on the Seward Highway this weekend resulted in a fatality.

Thirty-nine-year-old Melanie Hinkle died when her car collided with another around Mile 105 Saturday morning, according to Anchorage Police.

Mike Barrett remembers hopping on CB radio to get the highway report from truckers when he was growing up on the peninsula.

“That’s how we would find out what the roads were ahead," he said. "It was the social media of its time.” 

That’s the kind of thing Barrett was going for when he created South Peninsula Road Conditions, a Facebook group with a dedicated following of commuters who crowdsource updated information about the peninsula’s roads.