Cooper Creek Bridge - Bottleneck of a Walkable Community

Cooper Creek is important to our community. Gold discovery nearby helped establish Cooper Landing. Spawning salmon returning to Cooper Creek continue to populate the Kenai River. A US Forest Service campground located on its banks hosts guests to our community.

Cooper Creek Bridge at Mile 50.2 is narrow by modern standards and can be challenging for drivers to navigate when confronted with all manner of oncoming traffic. It is inadequate to allow both lanes of traffic and a pedestrian or bicycle at the same time.

Anyone choosing to cross the Cooper Creek Bridge faces a dangerous path if doing so by foot or bicycle. We hope to change that.

The Sterling Highway MP 45-60, a.k.a. the Cooper Landing Bypass Project, will reduce traffic on the bridge but will not address the deficiencies of the bridge. We hope to raise awareness that this bridge will continue to limit connectivity and create risk even after the Bypass is completed and suggest that addressing these deficiencies should be a part of the mitigation of the Bypass project’s effects.

click image for video: westbound

Looking to walk from town to Cooper Creek Campgrounds or to Two Brothers Roadhouse? Just hop right over the guardrail, run the length of the bridge and hop the guardrail back to safety on the other side before traffic arrives.

click image for video: eastbound

Drivers already shy from bridge edges and cross the centerline when there are not bicycles or pedestrians present. When there are, conditions become even more dangerous for all traffic.

click image for video: facing eastbound traffic

Don’t think squeezing pedestrians and bicycles into traffic on an aging bridge is a safe way to keep a community connected? Neither do we.

Planning a Solution

In 2019 Cooper Landing Walkable Community Project again partnered with Kenai Mountains Turnagain Arm Heritage National Heritage Area (KMTA). With KMTA assistance, CLWCP worked on a draft design project for the Cooper Creek Bridge with the University of Alaska Anchorage Civil Engineering Capstone Project. Click HERE for the Cooper Creek Bridge Planset. Click HERE for the Cooper Creek Bridge Design Study Report. Finally, click HERE for the Cooper Creek Alternative Analysis Report. The project resulted in a designed solution for the Cooper Creek’s transportation corridor choke point.