Truck traffic on the Alaska highway: sharing the road with tourists, wildlife and other industrial users.

• Author: Liles, Patricia
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

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Hacked out of the wilderness by military crews during World War II, the 1,400-mile-long Alaska Highway has become a vital transportation route for northern Canadian and Alaska communities that depend on goods delivered by semi-tractor trucks.

Once a gravel road reputed to destroy vehicle tires at an amazingly fast rate, the two-lane Alaska Highway is now paved from its starting point in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, 1,400 miles north to its official end in Delta Junction. Thanks to substantial reconstruction and rerouting work that has eliminated many of the dramatic switch-backs and sharp corners, the Alaska Highway is about 35 miles shorter today than it was in the 1940s, according to The Milepost, an annual publication that provides mile-by-mile highway logs for the highway.

Other road improvements include substantial widening and clearing of the road right of way, particularly in areas where wildlife wandering on or near the road can create the potential for vehicular accidents.

Once considered a challenging adventure to drive because of rough road conditions, the Alaska Highway has in recent years become a regular route for trucking companies bringing goods north, like Carlile Transportation Systems, which offers scheduled over-the-road truck-freight service to Alaska from Tacoma, Wash.; Minneapolis, Minn. and Houston, Texas.

"The road condition doesn't become an issue at all for us, because our drivers are up and down the road every week," said Linda Leafy, president of Carlile. "I don't hear any comments about the condition of the road. Once in a while they will run into bad weather, but the road condition doesn't slow us down or stop us from shipping."

In addition to providing a transportation network for truck-freight service, the Alaska Highway is also the only road route linking residents living in the most northern state of the nation to the Lower 48. And in summer months, the road becomes a scenic drive for many tourists looking to experience the beauty of the northern wilderness lands that the Alaska Highway traverses through.

Combine that tourist and trucking traffic with seasonal increases in large vehicles that are involved in the region's logging and oil and gas industry --the two-lane Alaska Highway offers an interesting mix of activity for individuals navigating the route, and for those businesses providing traveler-based services.

TRUCKING INDUSTRY WORKS ALASKA HIGHWAY

The bulk of retail goods...