AK: Adding to usasf two unnumbered freeways

[oscar]

I plan to add two short freeways in Alaska to usasf (system for unnumbered U.S. freeways). One of them is the Johansen Expressway in Fairbanks. The other includes parts of Minnesota Dr. and O'Malley Rd. in Anchorage, but it's now under one name, Walter J. Hickel Parkway, per a state law enacted in 2013.

Both freeways are about 4-5 miles long, which makes them borderline for inclusion in usasf. It helps that the one in Anchorage, which used to go through a name change at some unspecified point along the route, now is all the Hickel Parkway, which overcomes my original inclination to treat it as a just a pair of overgrown city streets.

My draft route file for the Hickel Parkway includes a short connector between the south end of the freeway at Old Seward Highway, and the New Seward Highway (part of AK 1). It excludes the part of Minnesota Dr. north of where the freeway ends at Tudor Rd. State law includes in the Parkway all of Minnesota Dr., and O'Malley Rd. west of New Seward Hwy. The former has lots of at-grade intersections north of Tudor Rd. (as well as a short, isolated freeway segment), while the latter has only one minor at-grade crossing between Old Seward and New Seward,

[yakra]

Johansen Expressway has more at-grades than interchanges...

[froggie]

At first blush, agree on adding Minnesota Dr (cannot get over the "new name", even if passed by law), disagree on Johansen.

[Duke87]

Johansen Expressway has more at-grades than interchanges...

On the other hand it also has Alaska's only signed exit numbers.

I think it's a major enough road to be worthy of inclusion.

[oscar]

Johansen Expressway has more at-grades than interchanges...

On the other hand it also has Alaska's only signed exit numbers.

I think it's a major enough road to be worthy of inclusion.

The thing that bothers me about it, on second look, is that exit 3B is a ramp for an at-grade intersection. We have exits 2, 3A, and 4 that are conventional interchanges, but 3B breaks the sequence. So I'm inclined not to include the Johansen Expy.

I'll go ahead and add the Hickel Parkway (includes parts of Minnesota Dr. and O'Malley Rd., and that's the only name that covers both), from Tudor Rd. to AK 1 (including a short stretch with a few at-grades, but I think we have the latitude to stretch a freeway to include its connection to another freeway). I'll wait a few days, until I get past the "stress of the seasons" and Jim completes the server move/update.

[oscar]

Hickel Parkway is now in the HB. Johansen Expressway is left out.

Marking this topic as "solved", though I suggest that we wait until next week before moving it to "Solved Highway data updates" in case someone has followup comments.

[bejacob]

Glad I made a point of driving this route while I was in Anchorage over the summer. It looked like the kind of route that would be added to the HB eventually. Nice to have another clinched route (albeit a short one) under my belt.