By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
The paving of a small portion of Crow Creek Road (.7 miles) and construction of a new bridge over California Creek was finally completed at the end of October. The project ran longer than expected due to some unforeseen geological obstacles and a lack of warm days near the end of the construction window.
The newly paved road was not completed without controversy. Some people in the community and the contractor himself have expressed their concerns over the lack of pedestrian walkways, a problem compounded by speeding motorist.
A soft muddy ground base and large boulders and bedrock at the California Creek bridge location lengthened the project by more than two months said Colter Fike, owner of Fike Industrial the contractor hired for the roadwork. He said the company also spent extensive time on the road, digging up mud and replacing it with fill.
“We spent 45 extra days working on the main road,” Fike said. “Where we were digging up the road there was a lot of mud spots that had to be extracted and replaced with fill so the road would have a better life span.”
The muddy base was so unstable Fike said his workers could jump up and down on one section and the entire road would bounce up and down like weather balloon.
“It was really bad,” he said.
Then there was the unexpected bedrock and large boulders around California Creek where a two lane bridge was constructed replacing the dilapidated one lane bridge.
“We were delayed 37 days to bring in the equipment necessary to break up all the big boulders and bedrock we didn’t anticipate,” Fike said, “which held up the bridge being constructed.”
Currently there’s a temporary bridge adjacent to the newly constructed bridge, which will be torn down next spring. Otherwise, the only remaining work that needs to be done is the partial paving of five business and seven residential driveways. Between 12 and 20 feet of pavement will be laid down for each driveway to prevent rocks and gravel from being tracked into the road. That work will not be done until late next spring or early summer when the weather is warm enough for paving.
Now that the road is paved and the new two lane bridge is open to traffic, some people are questioning how safe it is for pedestrians. Motorists have already been observed driving faster than the speed limit, which is 30 mph as posted on road signs. And a some people are questioning the lack of pedestrian walkways both on the side of the road and the bridge itself.
However, during the public comment periods prior to the project, engineers listened to the community and determined that a bike path or sidewalk would expand the roadside too much and be a costly addition—the project was federally earmarked at an estimated cost of $2.7 million.
“The main reason for not including pedestrian walkways was to keep the footprint of the road to a minimum,” said Alan Drake, state Department of Transportation Project Manager. “We would have had to make everything 10 feet wider and that would just impact people more.”
Residents expressed such concerns during the ground clearing phase of the project, when people complained about the number of trees and brush being cleared.
Prior to the bridge construction, a special meeting was held at Glacier City Hall where two engineers on the project met with a handful of residents who voiced their concern over the lack of a pedestrian walkway on the new bridge. They cited the death of one young girl, Katherine Maul, a 7-year-old who died after being hit by a vehicle crossing the bridge over Glacier Creek in 1975 and four years later two boys, 13-year-od Scott Garrish and his brother, 11-year-old Wesley, were killed walking along Alyeska Highway. A pedestrian walkway was built next to Glacier Creek bridge in the early 80’s along with a bike path along Alyeska Highway, in part, because of those fatal accidents.
Girdwood Fire Chief Bill Chadwick administered CPR to Maul and was with her in the EMS transport vehicle. He said he’s especially concerned about the lack of pedestrian walkways on Crow Creek Road and the bridge.
“It’s a pretty dangerous road, especially now that its paved and people are going fast,” he said. “I think now that it’s paved, people need to pay extra attention up there and slow down and watch for pedestrians.”
Fike also expressed his concern over the lack of a pedestrian walkway on the bridge. He said he proposed an alternative design to engineers that actually would have cost $200,000 less to build than the chosen design, but the engineers told him it was too late to go through another permitting process and that if they did it would be difficult to complete the project this year.
“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Fike said. “I think we could have got it done in time. I didn’t feel it was right for the community there, but I didn’t have any luck convincing the state.”
Drake said the 28-foot wide bridge over California Creek was constructed with a four foot wide shoulder to account for pedestrian traffic. The previous bridge was half as wide and was only one lane.
Some residents of Crow Creek have stated that the one lane bridge actually slowed traffic down and made the bridge safer, and now with a two-lane bridge and paved road on either side, motorists will travel faster across it, making the bridge more dangerous for pedestrians crossing it.
The bridge alone cost $1 million to build and adjacent to it is a pull-off at a trailhead next to California Creek. There was talk of having a new parking area built by the bridge, but now there appears to be opposition to that idea, Fike said.
“It sounds like you won’t get it,” he said. “There will be some parallel parking in the same area.”
But in a town where a paved road is a luxury, the community as a whole should benefit with this small portion of road that has caused a whole lot of controversy.
“I think you had a road like Timberline,” Fike said. “Really bumpy and rocky. This was a road that consistently had a lot of potholes. The pavement will absolutely help in that respect, and you have the other issue of a lot of pedestrian use, people jogging and biking. Maybe more could have been done, but there was a lot of consideration on what to do about that and there was extensive work to widen the center area up the road so pedestrians would have more walking space. But there aren’t pedestrian walkways, and I think that was one of the shortcomings of the bridge—that there weren’t pedestrian walkways.”