McCarthy Road Input Needed
To address access and public safety along the McCarthy Road, the Federal Highway Administration, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) and the National Park Service (NPS) need your input this July 30th and July 31st.
Together, they are drafting the McCarthy Road Planning And Environmental Linkages (PEL) Study. The funding for this work is from the Federal Lands Access Program.
Map courtesy: https://mccarthyroadpel.com/
Public meetings will be held during each phase of the study:
1. Assessing needs and opportunities (Meeting #1 – Late 2023) – Completed
2. Developing and evaluating potential improvement options (Meeting #2 – Summer 2024)
3. Preparing the PEL Study and draft recommendations (Meeting #3 – Spring 2025)
Timeline courtesy: https://mccarthyroadpel.com/
The McCarthy Road Project Advisory Committee (PAC) is meeting continuously, providing guidance and input. The PAC includes DOT&PF, NPS, Native Village of Chitina, Ahtna, local residents, and organizations representing tourism, economic development, and regional planning organizations.
The scoping for this project has been great, allowing for ample public input throughout.
The first of the project’s three public meetings was held as an online open house, available from November 29, 2023, to January 10, 2024. Prior to the online open house, the team hosted the first PAC meeting on November 16, 2023, and launched a project website. There was also an informal study team meet-and-greet with the public in Chitina and McCarthy in June 2023.
The first online open house allowed for public comments to be gathered in multiple ways, including an interactive mapping tool that allowed visitors to tag their comments to specific locations along the study corridor. The online open house also contained a link to a poll intended to solicit more detailed input on corridor vision, purpose statement, and goals.
More than 300 comments were collected throughout the first engagement period. Popular comment themes included:
Access (e.g., road reliability, parking, bridge access)
Road design and road character
Bridge condition (e.g., Gilahina, Kennicott River)
Road condition/maintenance (e.g., drainage, culverts, chip seal, glaciation, brush clearing, sight distance, potholes, erosion, winter maintenance)
Hazards (e.g., landslide, avalanche, bluffs)
Safety (e.g., speeding, emergency services)
Community considerations and economic development
PEL process
Visitor experience (e.g., pullouts, waysides, signage)
Recreation opportunities (e.g., trails, lake access, boat ramp)
Multi-modal accommodation (i.e., bicyclists, pedestrians)
If you want to learn more, or get involved, please visit the McCarthy Road PEL site here.
Public scoping timeline courtesy: https://mccarthyroadpel.com/