Moose Pass residents say proposed Seward Highway improvements will damage the town

This story originally appeared on KDLL and is republished here with permission.

The small community of Moose Pass has existed since before highways were built on the Kenai Peninsula. Now, an Alaska Department of Transportation plan to resurface and restore the Seward Highway has residents afraid that construction will cause irreparable damage to their town.

Wedged between Trail Lake to the east and mountains to the west, Moose Pass hugs the two-lane highway. The state has long wanted to update a 10.5-mile stretch and improve drainage with new ditches.

This year, the Department of Transportation is hoping to start securing right-of-way acquisitions to build those ditches, pending approval by the Kenai Peninsula Borough Planning Commission.

“The little old Alaskan downtown look that we’ve had here forever, which kinda makes Moose Pass unique, will be gone. All the old-grow trees will be taken back, we’ll have people’s front yards on the roadway and it won’t be the same easygoing, simple-looking American/Alaskan town that we’ve had before,” Moose Pass resident John Smart said.

He’s taken on the role of communications for Preserve and Protect Moose Pass, a cohort of residents who oppose the current plan and want to brainstorm a more favorable path forward.

Smart said that like many residents, he knows the road needs work — he’s just not happy with the way DOT is going about the project.

Many of Preserve and Protect Moose Pass’s complaints relate to the change in the scope of the project. From the residents’ perspective, the scope changes were accompanied by a lack of communication with local residents.

“I believe if they had stopped right then and went back through and looked at their study, and spent more time with the residents, we probably would not be where we’re sitting today,” Smart said.

DOT says the scope of the project has changed. Justin Shelby, an administrative operations manager for the department, said the current project has been scaled down from a larger rehab project, partially as a result of concerns from the community about impact. And in 2019, it was combined with a separate road resurfacing project.

Shelby said constructing the drainage ditches is an important part of extending the life of the roadway. They drain surface and subsurface water from the road, in addition to storing snow and catching runaway vehicles.

“Resurfacing the roadway without addressing the root causes of the degradation of the roadway would not meet the purpose of the project,” he said.

In fact, Shelby said, in Moose Pass, DOT is proposing narrower ditches than it usually would to accommodate the private properties close to the roadway.

Among the community’s chief complaints are the removal of old-growth trees, elimination of the parking areas of businesses and disruption of septic tanks.

Many Moose Pass residents will have their driveways modified, relocated or removed as a result of this project. In an August 2021 presentation to the Moose Pass Advisory Planning Commission, project engineer Kirsten Valentine pointed out that many driveways in Moose Pass were built without a permit and don’t meet driveway standards. She said the project will remove redundant driveways and bring others to compliance.

One business that will be affected is the Estes Brothers Store, founded as a homestead in 1921.

Jeff Estes is concerned about how the project will affect his business. He said the proposed right-of-way, if secured, would cut through about one third of the store itself.

“Does that mean they’re gonna move the store? I have to move the store?” Estes said.

He worried about how the project could affect the entryway, which faces the road.

“They originally suggested putting it on the north side of the building, and I was just floored,” he said.

Estes said that area gets buried in snow in winter, and the other option — putting the entryway on the back of the store — just doesn’t make good business sense.

Another concern among residents of Moose Pass is maintenance. While the highway construction is federally funded, maintenance is state-funded, and resources are spread thin.

Estes is worried that this project will begin a new era of under-maintenance.

“It seems to me that if they put in wider, deeper ditches and larger culverts, larger more maintenance-intensive structure — that if they don’t maintain it, it’s going to be poor drainage and cause the roadbed to deteriorate again, being a massive waste of federal funds that we pay taxes for,” Estes said.

Shelby said DOT has a limited maintenance budget, which it uses for snow removal and traffic light upkeep, in addition to roadway maintenance. But he said it does have a larger capital budget.

“It’s much better to address a section of road like this with a capital project that’s not competing with the cost of other maintenance needs,” Shelby explained.

Additionally, Shelby said, some of the drainage ditches relevant to the highway aren’t currently in the right-of-way, which means DOT can’t access them for maintenance. Part of the purpose of the project is to acquire easements that will allow maintenance of those ditches.

Smart said that for now, Preserve and Protect Moose Pass hopes to buy time while working on a solution.

“Our hope going forward is that we can sit down, delay this project and get a redesign together that benefits both the state of Alaska and the residents of Moose Pass,” he said.

The borough planning commission already postponed an original vote on the department’s proposal to give the Moose Pass Advisory Planning Commission time to review it. The Moose Pass commission met on Thursday to discuss the plan.

The borough planning commission had planned to vote Monday on whether the proposed project meets borough code. However, last Wednesday, DOT rescinded its preliminary plans in order to provide more opportunities for community input. Members of Preserve and Protect Moose Pass celebrated this delay as a win for their group.