Anchorage

Chester Creek Trail users can expect detours as construction resumes

The second phase of a three-part facelift for Anchorage's Lanie Fleischer Chester Creek Trail will start Tuesday, shutting down sections of roughly 1 mile of the popular trail between the Seward Highway and Lake Otis Parkway through the end of July.

Josh Durand, superintendent with the Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department, said the construction project will begin at the highway and move east, eventually extending beyond Lake Otis Parkway to Nichols Street, near Goose Lake Park. As the contractor completes the work, it will reopen sections of the newly paved trail. Trail users should expect blockades on the trail throughout the summer marking whichever stretch of pathway is deemed off-limits at that time, Durand said.

"It's a much more narrow corridor so if someone goes past the blockades they're putting themselves at risk," he said, comparing it to earlier construction zones on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.

Durand said phase two of the Chester Creek Trail construction will end around July 30. By that time, phase three will have recently started and should finish up by the end of October, he said. That portion will focus on resurfacing the trail from the Seward Highway west to Arctic Boulevard, near Valley of the Moon Park, he said.

In both phases, the contractor will tear up the current trail and lay new asphalt. In some areas, they will add a deeper layer of gravel mixture that doesn't absorb moisture. This should lessen the trail's movement between seasons and therefore reduce the number of cracks and ridges, Durand said.

The trail will also be outfitted with 2-foot-wide "soft-surface" shoulders on each side. The granite mixture will give runners a softer track to use and also create a boundary between the trail and surrounding vegetation, he said.

Phases two and three follow the construction work done on the Chester Creek Trail last summer from Westchester Lagoon to Arctic Boulevard.

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By the end of October -- if all goes as scheduled -- trail users will have access to a recently paved Chester Creek Trail that covers 4 miles. Durand said it's the first major repair work since the trail was built in the 1970s. The parks department expects the resurfaced trail to last for 20 to 30 years.

A 2012 legislative grant and municipal bonds passed in 2013 and 2014 are funding the three phases of the project. Together, they total about $3.2 million, Durand said.

"It's really exciting working on the bond projects because it's really the community saying that this is something they really want to happen," he said.

For the commuters who use the trail as a way to work, volunteers on bikes will lead tours of the detour routes around construction on Tuesday and Wednesday. Interested bicyclists should meet at Goose Lake or the Sullivan Arena parking lots, with the tours departing every half hour between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and again from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Durand said.

According to the Parks and Recreation Department's website, the trail will be opened for a list of races this summer. It notes that while the trail section may not be paved, it will be smooth and safe.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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