This is an intersection upgrade project that is currently scheduled for 2023 construction. My role was to research the existing right-of-way and share the base mapping task with another R&M surveyor. There is a lot of history with this project ranging from my 1966 arrival in Alaska and through my years at DOT&PF Northern Region. After arriving in Fairbanks in 1966, we took up residence in the Fairview Manor apartments that were located on North side of Airport Way and to the West of Cowles Street. In 1967, Fairbanks was hit with what must have been the 100 year flood. Nearly every house in the floodplain was damaged but as we lived at apartment 2H 7&8 on the third floor, most of our possessions were protected. I could however, look down to our garage door that had floated open and see just the white roof of our Chevy Impala. The section of Airport Way fronting Fairview Manor was under construction with the curb and gutter having been recently poured. I recall the limits of the flood water appeared to go up to the centerline of the divided four lane.
Fast forward to my DOT&PF career between 1986 and 2014. I found ROW research along Airport Way to always be frustrating. The ROW plans would in part be based upon a fixed offset from the design centerline and in other cases be referenced to an existing platted boundary. Where the platted boundary was to be the project ROW line, the plans neglected to show any ties between the ROW and the project centerline. This meant that to locate the project ROW, you would first have to retrace the subdivision boundary. Also, the control monuments from which centerline could be located were placed at odd offsets and shown only upon the construction as-built plans. The ROW plans were prepared back at the time when drafting was occasionally relegated to ROW Agents with little other work or construction hands who were separated from their projects over the winter. The result was often that the dimensions as shown on the plat could not be used to calculate the closure on a parcel. Occasionally you might find additional details in the acquisition plats and legal descriptions but often you were left scratching your head. Fortunately, there must have been others like me who just hate to throw stuff away. Back in the time these ROW plans were prepared, Civil3D, AutoCad, desk computers or even calculators with trig functions were still a few decades away. And DOT did not seem to adopt technology easily. I found this out in 1986 when I had to supply my own 8086 desktop computer with a 10mb hard disk and an amber screen to facilitate some of my tasks as ROW Engineering Supervisor. The COGO (Coordinate Geometry) calculations performed by DOT (Dept. of Highways at the time) for the Airport Way ROW plans were hand coded on pre-printed notepads. You would select points and then define bearings in a request to perform a bearing-bearing intersection problem. These sheets would then be sent to Juneau where they had an IBM 360 mainframe computer. The coding would most likely be entered on keypunch cards and then run with the resulting "green" sheets providing the completed calculations to be mailed back to Fairbanks. It was in the Northern Region ROW Engineering archives that I found a folder of these "green" sheets for the Airport Way ROW plan COGO. With these sheets I was able to fill in the blanks that upon the plans themselves were indecipherable.
Another accidental win came from a Thomas Engineering project for DOT to survey the Cushman Street corridor from Gaffney to Van Horn Road. This was accomplished between 1991 and 1994. DOT&PF projects come and go with the funding and political cycles and the Cushman project was no different. It was to be shelved for the next couple of decades with only the odd intersection project constructed. At the time, the typical process would have DOT take the consultant's submittals and place them in a large cardboard box such that it might come of some use in the future. Fortunately, the project manager asked for my thoughts and I requested that the consultant's existing ROW/monument recovery survey be filed with the Recorder as a Record of Survey. This may have been the first. So many years later when portions of the project restarted, boundary monuments may have have been destroyed, however, we now had a sealed record of their locations from which to start our ROW plan development. We were also able to reestablish boundaries based on 1955 and 1957 precise surveys of the Rickert Homestead Subdivision and the Fairbanks Townsite that were prepared for utility expansion design by the City of Fairbanks. These maps were unrecorded but were clearly based on competent surveys which provided evidence of monument positions. Not every boundary could be reestablished with certainty but the evidence we used was far better than what in some cases little more than a graphic representation according to the existing ROW plans. All in all, a very challenging project.
| Date | Documents |
|---|---|
|
3/21/17 |
Cushman Gaffney Report - Summary of Boundary Problems |
|
varies |
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|
varies |
Airport-Cushman Log - Initial Notes |
|
??? |
Airport Way Basis of ROW - Initial Notes & Chronology |
|
??? |
Airport Way Cushman - Draft Survey Control Diagram - Low Distortion Projection |
|
??? |
Airport Way ROW Base_Map - Draft |
|
??? |
Airport Way ROW Map Part1 - Draft (7mb) |
|
??? |
Airport Way ROW Map Part2 - Draft (6mb) |
| Mapping | |
|
6/15/89 |
F-035-6-11 Parks Highway - Peger to Richardson - As-builts |
|
5/10/10 |
Fairbanks GPS Network Plat 2010-103 - Record of Survey (2mb) |
|
??? |
Airport Way - Cushman Street - Signal Contol Alternative |
| Mapping - 2020 Gap | |
|
6/2/20 |
email Airport Way Cushman ROW Gap - Proposed resolution |
|
??? |
|
|
4/2020 |
|
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4/24/20 |
Exhibit 2 Airport Way ROW GAP - Parcel Plat |
|
4/24/20 |
Exhibit 3 Cushman ROW GAP - Parcel Plat |
|
4/29/20 |
|
| Mapping - Airport/Cushman | |
|
2/20/19 |
email Airport Way Cushman - Additional ROW Ties |
|
??? |
FNSB GIS Base Map -Project overlay |
|
11/4/05 |
|
|
??? |
Project Survey Limits - Aerial photo |
| Mapping - Airport/Cushman - BLM | |
|
11/24/52 |
|
|
1951 |
|
|
4/25/16 |
Kolde Homestead - BLM Online Abstract |
|
3/23/11 |
|
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4/25/16 |
Rickert USS 849 - BLM Onlilne Abstract |
|
6/7/13 |
|
| Mapping - Airport/Cushman - Foodland | |
|
6/7/80 |
B185 P426 L3 B124 Plat 83-52 - Warranty Deed |
|
6/7/80 |
Carr Gottstein B125 Rickert before 94-130 Replat - Warranty Deed |
|
??? |
Foodland before 94-130 replat - Exhibit A Parcel Descriptions |
|
11/18/94 |
Replat 83-52 & 94-130 Conflict - Tract A Block 125 |
| Mapping - Airport/Cushman - Rickert | |
|
1956 |
Rickert Precise Survey - City of Fairbanks (4mb) |
|
1967 |
COF Rickert Precise Survey - COGO Calc sheets (6mb) |
|
8/31/83 |
|
|
6/18/85 |
Plat 85-100 Block 11 Rickert - ROW Dimensions |
|
2/22/16 |
ReadMe - JFB Notes re: Rickert Precise Survey |
|
1/1/55 |
Sample RW Beck Map Sheet G-13 - Fairbanks Townsite (2mb) |
|
11/20/13 |
USS 849 - Rickert Homestead |
| Mapping - Airport/Cushman - Townsite | |
|
11/18/94 |
|
|
1/1/55 |
RW Beck Blocks 123-126 - Fairbanks Townsite (2mb) |
|
1922 |
|
|
5/29/08 |
USS 438 - Fairbanks Townsite |
| Mapping - Airport Way | |
|
7/9/73 |
Airport Way As-builts Excerpt - Gillam - Gaffney - Big Bend (4mb) |
|
1972 |
Airport Way West of Gillam - Sheet 10 of 10 - ROW Map = F-062-4(12) |
|
??? |
ReadMe - JFB Notes re: Original Design Centerline traverse sheets for Airport Way |
|
??? |
Record CL Align w recvd mon - JFB Notes on calculating the Airport Way centerline |
| Mapping - Cit of Fairbanks | |
|
4/27/09 |
|
|
4/22/15 |
|
| Mapping - Cushman/Gaffney | |
|
7/31/87 |
Cushman Gaffney Signal Upgrade ROW - RS-HES-M-0663(2) |
|
10/28/89 |
Cushman Gaffney Signal Upgrade Asbuilts - RS-HES-M-0663(2) |
|
11/26/86 |
Cushman Gaffney Signals Paper Plat - ROW Research |
|
9/7/88 |
E1 - 1A - Corporation Easement |
|
2/17/89 |
Pcl 2 - Warranty Deed |
|
9/9/88 |
Pcl 3 - Declaration of Taking |
|
5/18/89 |
|
|
5/8/91 |
Pcl 4 - 4A - Corrective Warranty Deed |
|
9/7/88 |
Pcl 5 - Corporation Warranty Deed |
| Mapping - Gillam/Gaffney | |
|
6/4/19 |
email Cushman Gillam Way - ROW Notes |
|
12/30/68 |
Airport Way Gillam E&S ROW - F-062-4(21) (2mb) |
|
??? |
F-0624-21 Airport Way - Document Summary (4mb) |
| Mapping - Gillam/Gaffney - 1969 ROWE | |
|
1968 |
|
|
1969 |
|
|
1968-70 |
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1968-70 |
|
|
1968-70 |
|
|
1968-70 |
|
|
??? |
L Line Control - Traverse Sheets |
|
1969 |
|
| Mapping - Gillam/Gaffney - Declarations of Taking | |
|
5/6/70 |
|
|
4/28/70 |
|
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4/14/70 |
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4/9/70 |
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5/28/70 |
|
|
4/9/70 |
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4/14/70 |
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|
4/14/70 |
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4/14/70 |
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|
4/14/70 |
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|
4/14/70 |
|
|
5/6/70 |
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4/14/70 |
|
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4/14/70 |
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5/18/70 |
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|
4/14/70 |
|
|
4/14/70 |
|
|
11/14/77 |
Pcl 6 - Final Order |
|
5/18/70 |
|
|
11/4/74 |
|
| Mapping - L20 & 21 B2 Gateway | |
|
2/19/19 |
email Airport Way - Cushman ROW - Found Rebar & Cap |
|
4/20/04 |
|
| Mapping - Noble Street | |
|
1/11/16 |
|
|
4/10/15 |
Noble Street Survey Control - STP-000S(413) Record of Survey Draft |
|
8/24/15 |
Proposed Noble Street ROW Plans - STP-000S(413) (4mb) |
|
2015 |
Proposed Design Noble Street - (7mb) |
|
1970's |
Noble Street Intersection with Airport Way - Design plan sheet |
|
1970's |
|
|
1970's |
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|
1970's |
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1962 |
|
|
1970's |
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| Mapping - Review | |
|
2015 |
|
|
4/25/16 |
|
|
5/24/16 |
|
|
6/2/16 |
|
|
9/19/96 |
|
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert | |
|
2/21/19 |
|
|
2/19/19 |
JFB Notes - re: Rickert L23 B13 |
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert - Boundary Law | |
|
??? |
Boundary Control and Legal Principles 7th - Proportional "of" conveyance |
|
10/2015 |
Clark on Boundaries 8th Ed - The meaning of "half" |
|
??? |
Evidence and Procedures 6th Ed - Proportionate Conveyances |
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert - Deeds | |
|
11/4/40 |
|
|
7/18/46 |
|
|
9/11/46 |
|
|
12/17/80 |
|
|
11/10/93 |
|
|
7/15/03 |
|
|
5/30/17 |
|
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert - DOH | |
|
5/6/70 |
|
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert - FNSB | |
|
??? |
|
|
2/20/19 |
|
| Mapping - S2 L23 B13 Rickert - Stutzmann | |
|
2/19/19 |
|
|
2/21/19 |
|
|
9/3/92 |
|
|
9/3/92 |
|
| Mapping - South Cushman | |
|
2007 |
PDC South Cushman Base Map - Draft |
|
4/2/14 |
|
|
7/22/96 |
Thomas -Cushman ROS - Amended plat to RS 95-21 (5mb) |
|
3/5/15 |
|
|
11/7/05 |
|
|
1996 |
|
|
7/22/96 |
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