Alaska Department of Transportation recorded about 10,112 total crashes between 2013 and 2021 in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, according to Nathan Stephan a DOT traffic and safety engineer.
Stephen presented the data to the Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation (FAST) Planning technical committee last week as part of an overall review of how it tracks accident information.
Of those crashes, about 4,781 occurred from 2017 to 2021, including 3,781 within the Fairbanks and North Pole metropolitan planning organization (MPO) area.
Within the urban area, the bulk of the crashes — 2,729 — over a five-period were were vehicle-related. Vehicle crashes apply to everything from from property-only damage to serious accidents and fatalities.
The next highest crash type, undetermined, totaled 904 from 2017 to 2021. Stephen most undetermined crashes may fall under vehicle-related crashes.
Other crash categories include animal-vehicle collisions, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, pedestrian and bicycle related incidents.
Stephen noted that the bulk of the crashes — 3,696 — were either property damage or minor over the five-year period.
The number of crashes with serious injuries have decreased gradually over the five-year period. There were 23 incidents in 2107, 14 in 2018, 13 in 2019, 15 in 2020 and six in 2021. The number of fatalities have remained in single digits. Five people were killed in 2017, two in 2018, one in 2019, four in 2020 and two in 2021.
“Severity of the crashes have gone down over the last several years,” Stephen said. “We’d like to attribute that to the safety projects we have nominated that have improved roadside safety, hardware design and geometric designs.”
However, Stephen noted the numbers were slowly going down in the the FAST Planning MPO area. The total number of crashes have fallen from 969 in 2017 to 557 in 2021.
The bulk of the incidents occurred in the Fairbanks area, with some large clusters in North Pole.
Jackson Fox, executive director of FAST Planning, called the decrease a shocking number. He added that “fender benders” and property damage incidents “can really spike numbers up.”
“One thing that comes to mind is that over the past few years there’s been more intersection improvements that eliminates a lot of fender benders,” Fox said.
Pam Golden with DOT said the Covid-19 pandemic may have played a part in falling crashes.
“The Lower 48 saw a real spike in the number and severity of crashes,” Golden said. However, the number of travelers in Fairbanks decreased because of Canada’s strict border control during the pandemic.
“We saw quite a decline in 2020 and 2021 until tourism came back up,” Golden said. “No one could get here.”
Golden added that several years ago, law enforcement stopped reporting most “property damage only” crashes because it became too cumbersome and started instructing drivers to self-report those types of collisions.
DOT pulls its data from several law enforcement agencies, including Alaska State Troopers, University Police Department, Fairbanks Police Department, North Pole Police Department and Fairbanks International Airport Police Department.
Stephen noted the state uses the crash data to identify projects that can be funded under the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Safety Improvement Program. Qualifying projects are determined if one fatal accident or two serious injury crashes occurred within a two mile area. Once locations are determined, DOT identifies crash patterns and driver behavior, and possibility for reducing crashes.
“There are a whole list of factors in the handbook that we use in the project nomination process,” Stephen said. Projects are ranked based on the highest benefit-to-cost ratio.
“Obviously, if you want to do projects responsibly, it has to be within reason,” Stephen said.
Some of the highest priority roads within the borough area from 2018 to 2020 include Badger Road (from Old Richardson Highway to Plack Road), Chena Hot Springs Road (Steese Highway to Nordale Road), Farmers Loop Road (McGrat Road to Taku Drive), and Chena Hot Springs Road (Nordale Road to Little Chena River).
Badger Road between Old Richardson Highway and Plack Road was addressed in 2019 by converting it to a four-lane road. Chena Hot Springs Road at Steese Highway had turning lanes and a roundabout installed in 2020.
Improvements for Farmers Loop Road at McGrath will be nominated for improvements this year.
Parks Highway from Old Nenana Highway South to Sheep Creek Road has also be nominated for safety improvements. Golden said DOT proposed installing a traffic signal at the Parks Highway and Sheep Creek Road due to its status as a “continuous green T-intersection.”
“If you’re heading northbound on the Parks Highway and you’re in the right hand lane, you don’t stop and continue on through,” Golden said. “There’s a real peek-a-boo problem at that intersection with a curve and lot of traffic volume at Sheep Creek, so it warrants a signal.”
Golden added DOT plans to conduct some outreach prior to starting the federal grant process for the Parks Highway/Sheep Creek project.
