3,300-Foot Lifelines: Remote runway construction takes grit, group effort.

• Author: Newman, Amy
• Position: TRANSPORTATION SPECIAL SECTION

Certain things about life in Alaska are absolutes. Bears will emerge from their dens in the spring. Aurora watchers will chase the Northern Lights in winter. And aviation continues to be a literal lifeline to the 82 percent of communities that lie off Alaska's road system.

"I don't think it ever hurts to reinforce that aviation is huge for Alaska," says Angela Smith, aviation group manager for PDC Engineers. "If the planes stop flying in Alaska, it would be a very different world. They play a vital role in most Alaskans' daily lives that they just don't even think twice about it."

With more than 2.4 million square miles of airspace, six times more pilots, and sixteen times the number of aircraft (per capita) than the rest of the United States--huge is an understatement. This vast expanse is served by 700 FAA-regulated airports, 235 of which are rural facilities owned and maintained by the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF). Comprised of little more than a roughly 3,300-foot-long runway, an apron, and a small terminal, rural airports ensure year-round access to residents and tourists and keep communities supplied with goods, equipment, and other everyday essentials.

"In some places, people are relying on those [flights] not just to get out but to get stuff in," says John Limb, senior associate at Stantec. "The groceries come in on the airplane, the medicine comes in on the airplane, the mail comes in on the airplane."

For rural airports, smaller doesn't mean easier when it comes to designing and building facilities. With guidance and input from the FAA and DOT&PF, a team of surveyors and hydrologists; electrical, mechanical, and geotechnical engineers; environmental scientists and consultants; and construction crews with experience working in remote locations collaborate to create a safe, cost-effective, efficient facility that can serve the community long-term.

And they do it while dealing with logistical challenges not found elsewhere.

"We have to get the equipment there, you have to think of material sites and how to find gravel in an area and location and bring it on to the runways and think about how [airport] access roads might interact with the community," says Ryan Cooper, an environmental scientist with Stantec. "So much of what we see is people just focusing on that miracle mile, the 3,000-feet of the runway, when we also need to think about the whole aspect of what the airport does."

Designing the Ideal...