DOT Construction Projects Under Way in Alaska.

• Author: KANE, ROGER
• Position: Statistical Data Included

Whether commuting or recreating, it will be hard to avoid the hundreds of road, highway and airport construction projects under way this summer. From Southeast to the Arctic Coastal Plain, highways will be widened, airport runways will be lengthened, roads will be paved and bridges will be repaired.

It's summer. It's road construction season and the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is hard at work trying to complete projects before the snow flies.

The Department of Transportation's budget for fiscal year 2002 includes about $350 million for highways and $150 million for airports, according to Murph O'Brien from the Central Region of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

The budget directs $879,800 to the Alaska Marine Highway System to cover its increased fuel costs and to maintain a full schedule of service to Southeast residents and visitors. Funding for highway and airport maintenance also increased by $2.2 million statewide, including a $175,000 increase for contract maintenance at rural airports.

International Airports

Anchorage and Fairbanks international airports are both undergoing extensive work.

Jim Firenze, the assistant airport manager at the Fairbanks International Air ort, said the airport is in the middle of a $4 million design project that will improve the baggage claim area, make internal changes, improve the customs area, rental-car counters and generally help people flow through the airport more smoothly.

The only active construction project under way at the airport is a $4 million field maintenance facility, Firenze said.

The new facility will house the estimated 100 pieces of equipment the airport owns and maintains, including snowblowers, graders, snowplows, deicing equipment and fire trucks.

The general aviation runway is also slated for an upgrade. The runway is currently 60 feet wide by 3,200 feet long. That runway will be extended to 100 feet wide by 6,500 feet long. The project is still in the design phase, but construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2002 and will cost an estimated $8 million.

An offshoot of that project is that the gravel removed from the end of the runway is to be used to provide a more substantial base at the strip used by skiclad aircraft in the winter.

Work at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is moving along, according to Chris Birch, manager of engineering, facilities and the environment at the airport.

Birch said there are...