State will drill test holes on Glacier Highway in Juneau for planned lighting

The state will drill test holes along Glacier Highway in Juneau from Nov. 9 to Nov. 20 to learn what's under the road's shoulder for planned lighting, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities said in a notice posted Tuesday.

The lighting project would install continuous lighting on Glacier Highway between Jensine Street and Fritz Cove Road, according to the department's highway safety funding plan.

Each hole will go 20 feet down at the edge of the paved shoulder. Every 5 feet, crews will run a Standard Penetration Test. A 140-pound hammer drops 30 inches, over and over, to drive a hollow steel tube into the soil. The number of blows it takes shows how firm the ground is, and the tube comes back up holding a soil sample.

The work will happen in daylight on the outbound shoulder, along about 1.3 miles of highway.

A 2017 corridor study commissioned by the City and Borough of Juneau recommended lighting both sides of Glacier Highway, especially near pedestrian crossings and bus stops. It tied better lighting and crosswalk signing to pedestrian visibility during Alaska's short winter days.

The state's plans list only federal money for the project: $200,000 in federal fiscal 2026 and about $2.8 million in federal fiscal 2027.

It has also slipped. In the spring, Kirk Miller, the department's Southcoast Region preconstruction engineer, said the department should be able to put the project out to bid in December. In July, he said he had moved it to June 2027 because the team was "just kind of struggling getting the design really into full gear here." He said he hoped to move it up a couple of months.

The department's advertising schedule still lists June 2027.