Some of the estimated tens of thousands of commuters who travel the Glenn Highway from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Eagle River to Anchorage every morning got to work late Wednesday. An Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spokesperson said a "miscommunication" caused a lane closure to stay in place for hours after it was supposed to have been removed.
What exactly caused the resulting approximately hourlong delay for many drivers is unknown, said DOT spokesperson Shannon McCarthy.
"We don't entirely know why the lane closure was not removed on time, but it stayed in place into the morning rush hour," McCarthy said. "And, of course, once traffic starts getting backed up and delayed it's almost impossible to pull the lane restriction out."
The restriction started in September, when crews began work on a capacity-improvement project that stretches between the Hiland Drive and Artillery Road interchanges.
The project calls for "long-range phased improvements" to the northbound and southbound lanes of the Glenn, an artery that connects Alaska's largest city to one of the nation's fastest-growing areas, the Mat-Su.
According to DOT, the highway serves more than 50,000 drivers a day.
"During peak hours, the Glenn's northbound lanes can become congested with traffic, resulting in delays, driver frustration, and conditions that can lead to vehicle crashes," says the road project's webpage.
Crews started clearing a 20-acre stretch along the highway last month and hauling materials, McCarthy said. Nighttime closures allow trucks to bring materials toward Anchorage and onto a worksite, she said.
The project's webpage states that starting Wednesday, commuters should expect the southbound lane between the Eagle River Bridge and the Hiland/Eagle River Loop overpass to be closed 24 hours a day. But McCarthy said that's not the case; the update was posted hastily because the department did not know when the closure would be lifted.
"But it didn't last 24 hours, and we were able to pull it," she said.
Houston resident George Thompson's daily commute slowed to a crawl around Peters Creek on Wednesday morning. He said what normally amounts to an hour and 15-minute drive took two and a half hours.
Thompson said the confusion was amplified by Eagle River residents trying to get onto the Glenn at the suburb's two exits. There was a lot of confusion, he said.
"The worst part was there was absolutely no work going on in that stretch of road," said Thompson, a construction manager at Anchorage-based Michael Baker Corp. "They put barrels up to block the lane and had a sign lit up telling people to merge to the right, but there was nothing going on."
After trying all day to figure out what happened, Thompson received an email from McCarthy stating that DOT does not "typically have lane restrictions during peak travel times; today's lane closure was a result of miscommunication." She assured Thompson that future, planned impacts to traffic would be communicated in advance.
"It will not happen again," she told Alaska Dispatch News. "We're focused nighttime lane restrictions only on this job."
However, that situation may change come spring 2015, when workers are scheduled to connect the existing highway to a new bridge and lanes.