Chena Hot Springs Road roundabout may work for 95-foot Kinross mine trucks in theory, but not in the winter

One of the looming safety and traffic hazards for the Kinross mine ore trucking plan is the proposal to use the Chena Hot Springs Road roundabout.

It may work in theory, but not in the winter. The trailers are not here yet, so this maneuver has not been road tested.

The 165,000-pound trucks are too heavy to use the Steese bridge over Chena Hot Springs Road, so they would have to get around it by taking the off-ramp to Chena Hot Springs Road and then going right back up the on-ramp.

The intersection was designed so that oversized loads that can’t use the bridge travel straight and take the gated route displayed below.

The trucks would travel across the yellow striped section on the off-ramp and proceed straight to the on-ramp, as shown below, avoiding the tight corner on the roundabout.

The gated route at the Chena Hot Springs Road exit off the Steese Highway was built to allow oversized loads to bypass the bridge on a straight path across the roundabout and over to the northbound on-ramp.

The gated thoroughfare across the roundabout cannot be used without having someone there to lift and lower the gates and to stop traffic from both directions, however, That means flagmen and possibly pilot cars 24 hours a day until the Steese bridge is replaced.

There would be a long delay for other traffic every 24 minutes to get trucks across Chena Hot Springs Road. (The company says it will run 2.5 trucks per hour. When it first proposed the trucking plan, it said it would run 4 trucks per hour, which would mean the gates would have to be raised and lowered every 15 minutes.)

(I wrote first that the delay would be a “minute or two,” but a reader comment below notes that the gates are hand cranked, meaning that it will take many minutes, not seconds, just to raise and lower them. I don’t know if the gates take seven minutes to operate, as the reader says, but that could be true. The state has not provided any information on this, perhaps because no one has bothered to check. It might make sense to leave the gates open all the time, but that would create a traffic hazard in the roundabout. This is one of many real safety questions that the state has failed to examine or explain to the public. These issues have clearly been pushed aside because the governor supports whatever Kinross says it needs.)

Kinross would rather try to use the roundabout and avoid the gates and the need for flagmen and pilot cars.

Could the trucks squeeze through the roundabout?

A state consultant says it might work based on a computer drawing of the intersection.

The graphic below from the state consultant shows that the mine trucks, represented by the green lines, may just barely make the turn when there are no snow berms to deal with. Even then, it is a marginal exercise, however,

There will be some traffic delays on Chena Hot Springs Road, especially in the morning and early evening, in either case because the trucks are going to have to be crawling over the roundabout.

The circle in the center features a mound of white rocks, apparently installed for aesthetics and to keep off-road vehicles at bay.

The area shaded in yellow is what’s called a “truck apron,” about 20 feet wide, placed there so that big trucks can roll over it if they can’t stay in the roadway.

In the winter large portions of the truck apron have been the site of snow berms and it will take more time, expense and maybe different equipment for the state to keep that entire area clear for the Kinross trucks.

Consultant Randy Kinney said that based on this model drawing, mine ore trucks can just get across the roundabout at Chena Hot Springs Road in theory, but this “must be field-verified, though.” The circle in the center is a big pile of rocks.

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