The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) will end seasonal maintenance in October.
On Seward Highway, crews are working overnight to finish a Pavement Preservation Project before the temperatures drop. Overnight construction is necessary, in order to complete the project before seasonal maintenance ends.
The roadway construction on Seward Highway is one of ADOT’s largest projects. Construction includes grinding away old pavement, leveling the roads and re-paving it.
“We have a high-angle crash rate there and some pedestrian crashes, so they’re putting in a median,” said ADOT spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy. “That will actually make that road safer. That road has over 30,000 cars a day on it, and that’s when we start to see more crashes.”
ADOT have this along with other highway projects completed by Oct. 1. Once construction is done, they’ll still have to put permanent lines down, and ask that drivers be patient and cautious driving in these areas.
McCarthy says this has been one of their busiest construction summers, with 45 projects.
Last year, the DOT did about $229 million worth of work, and expect to this summer's construction to total $240 million.
