Hi, I'm Paul Comfort, and this is Transit Unplugged, the top

podcast globally where we interview public transportation executives.

We're now over 300 podcasts in, in our seventh year, and we're

excited to continue to bring you.

Innovative programs such as this, which is part three of our series of our

Western, trip through the United States.

We started in Sacramento and then went to Anchorage, the largest city

in Alaska, then took a 12 hour ride on the Alaska Railroad up through Denali,

National Park, where they had just had wildfires and they had just opened

up the park just a few days before we actually went through it on our train.

They were concerned they may have to keep it shut.

We were in touch with them, but we made it and then went up to Fairbanks and man,

when we got there, The weather broke, it had been rainy all the time, and

it was crisp and clear and beautiful, and most of this podcast is recorded

outside with people, walking around.

It's just a really fun podcast, again, in person, story based.

I think you'll love it.

Last week, as I started with Alaska's largest city, we talked

about what transportation was like there in a large city.

This is a smaller city, the Fairbanks.

itself, but the region itself that they serve, they actually serve a

borough, which is kind of like a county, which is much bigger, almost

100, 000 people, and it includes, can you believe it, of all things, A city

called the North Pole, we actually visited there and I went to Santa's

house and got some fun pictures taken.

We put all this on Transit Unplugged TV, everything you hear on this podcast,

you can actually see with other portions of it as, as we're talking about it.

On this podcast, I talk with the head of transit, Michelle Denton, also

with Transportation Planner from the local MPO, the Metropolitan Planning

Organization, Corey DiRutigliano, and Transportation Day Johnson.

You'll hear from all three of them in this episode.

But before we dive into transit and transportation and Fairbanks I thought

we'd give a little context with a conversation that I had with Corey.

We were at a place called the Pump House, which he describes what that's about.

We sat on the banks of the Chena River.

under a beautiful, crisp suns it wasn't sunset, because you remember,

they've got sunlight for 21 hours during the time I was there.

But it was at a time when it might be sunset down here

around six o'clock at night.

and we start off by talking about how, how it all began.

Corey gives me a rundown on Fairbanks.

Take a listen.

So we're sitting here doing this on a great summer day where it's

beautiful here in Fairbanks, and we're on the Chena River.

And, we're at a place called the Pump House, and this is kind of where, where

Fairbank, modern Fairbanks, kind of got its start, right, with the gold,

people coming up here for gold, and the Pump House would pump water out.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so, Fairbanks, really the modern city was established around the gold rush.

That's when a lot of the infrastructure was built up.

the Pump House facility that we're at right now was essentially a water inlet

for, an area where they'd draw water up.

pump it up over the hills and the surrounding area, and then they'd

use that to essentially powerwash the hillsides as part of the

gold, you know, rush operation.

So, they'd use the pumps, they'd load it into these, you know, kind of like

cannons, and it would spray the hillsides.

And then, they'd take that slurry and run it through, you know, various

types of filters and sieves and then, you know, find gold out of that.

Yeah.

We were on a boat cruise today, and he was saying down this one part

of the river on the banks, they had found what today would be the

equivalent of 7 billion worth of gold.

So, there really was gold up in them dar hills, as they say.

It's pretty intense.

Yeah, and

actually, Fairbanks is kind of in the middle of what was, you

know, a number of Gold Camps.

So, some of those include Fox, Esther, you know, they're, they're kind of

all miles apart from one another.

And there was actually, at one point, a small gauge railroad

that connected all of these.

Sort of like a, a very early transit system that, that took people from,

you know, out in the Gold Camps and brought them into town or vice versa.

And we got to ride one of those small gauge trains just the other

day in what's called Pioneer Park?

Yep.

Yeah.

Pioneer Park was the site of the 1967 Expo here in Fairbanks, and it was a

way to celebrate the recent statehood of Alaska becoming the 49th state in 1959.

A big part of what defines Fairbanks is its history, And its geography.

as the largest city the northern part of the United States.

It's the largest big city that's considered urban area up in there.

It is the industrial transportation hub between oil fields to the north

and Anchorage and beyond to the south.

After the gold ran out, Fairbanks really didn't see a resurgence until World War

II, and he'll tell you why, and then again in the 1970s with the Alaska oil pipeline.

Corey talks about these big events to bring us to the present day.

city of Fairbanks.

Yeah, so, you know, this, this place really developed as kind of an industry

town and a lot of it was just moving material around and it was less

concerned with things like sidewalks and bike paths and, you know, really

developed under this, this kind of heavy, like, What you see of a lot of

the modern transportation is, is, you know, developed during the pipeline,

which was in the late 60s, early 70s.

Oh yeah, we got to

see that pipeline too.

What's that called?

The TransAlaska?

Yeah, the TransAlaska pipelines.

That's the 700 mile plus line that runs from the north slope all the way

down to the south coast in Valdez.

So there was this huge influx of money and resources, but it was, it was all

really purpose built to just try to, you know, churn out, materials to help,

you know, the construction of that.

That's really interesting.

Just to pause for a minute, the place gets start with a look for gold.

And then there go what they call black gold, right, in the

Beverly Hillbillies, right?

Yeah.

So pretty

wild.

Interesting.

Well, and there was a, there was a layover in the land lease

program during World War II.

So this, yeah, this community is really a series of boom and bust sort of periods.

It had gold to start, and then it, yeah, had 19, in the 1940s, planes

would fly up from the lower 48.

They would land here in Fairbanks.

They'd be outfitted, you know, they'd strip all the U.

S.

Air Force stuff out of them, overlay them with the Russian stuff, and

then the Russians would fly them off to fight in World War II.

So there was a lot of military buildup in the 40s and 50s.

Yeah,

Corey's a planner with Fast Planning, the MPO for the Borough of Fairbanks,

and he took me out to check a little nature, but with a purpose.

Fairbanks is surrounded by what's called discontinuous permafrost

tundra, and it's that permafrost that presents a unique challenge to a very

basic piece of infrastructure, roads.

We're outside now, in Fairbanks walking through a field.

Tell me where we're at, Corey.

So we're at, Creamer's Field.

It's a migratory bird refuge, right here in the middle of town.

it's the site where a lot of birds, come annually for, migratory activities.

And it's also a year round destination to witness wildlife and, sled dog racing

and a number of different activities.

And it is just beautiful out here.

We're on a, a brilliant, bright, sunny day, about 65 degrees.

Humidity is low.

I just love it out here, man.

You were telling me that when you come to Alaska, it's not,

it's an active choice, right?

Right.

Yeah, this isn't, this isn't necessarily a place that, you

can just coast and live in.

It's, it's active.

It's, it gets really quite cold in the winter, minus 50 Fahrenheit, and it can

get up to around 90 or 95 in the summer in some of the most extreme temperatures.

And, it's just, you know, it's a place that you have to love to be.

And, You know, you, I think you see that in the kind of culture and

active participation of everyone here.

this is just fantastic where we're standing right now.

There's a, describe what we're seeing.

These flowers and the white, and the white trees there, and

Yeah.

So right now we're standing in a field of fireweed.

we've got some raspberries here and strawberries and the fireweed can

grow up to six or seven feet tall.

you know, you see enormous plants when you go to the botanic gardens.

so we've got this super intense, but very short growing season.

Right now we're seeing some of the visuals.

And

you said the flowers, the fire flowers,

they indicate at which part of the summer you're at.

Yeah.

So the, the fireweed is, it's kind of a long conical flower.

flower structure and it blooms from the bottom up.

The locals here sort of say that based on how high up it's bloomed, that's

how much summer you've got remaining.

So right now we're about, you know, some of these are saying

a third, some are saying a half.

And you know, here in July that seems about right.

Fairbanks is, is an area in the interior of Alaska that's considered to have.

Discontinuous permafrost, north of the Brooks Range, it's, the ground

is completely frozen, and then south of the Alaska Range down by

Anchorage, it's, it's mostly thawed.

So that means that we're in an area where small nudges can really change ground

conditions, and what we're looking at in front of us here is an area which

When I moved here in 2011, it was a completely intact birch forest, high

canopy, you know, just really prolific.

And after a few heavy rain events and some standing water through

a couple seasons, that completely changed the soil regime and the

amount of ice that was in the ground.

What was pretty stable, ice laden ground is now completely thawed.

And we're looking at a rapid change from a birch forest essentially into a wetland.

Yeah, I mean there's like a pond in front of us almost.

Yep.

And the permafrost, tell me what that does.

So the, the permafrost, by definition means it's ground that's permanently

frozen, for, for the year.

It does thaw a bit in the summer months, but it's also really sensitive

to small environmental changes.

So, you know, you'll see in areas where the tundra is undisturbed, if you put

a road on it, that road will start to act like a heating element or like a

hot wire on it, and it can start to.

Thaw, the immediate ground in that area, what that does is it creates frost

heaves, it means the ground breaks up much more regularly, it means increased

maintenance costs, potholing, you know, holes, things like that, so the permafrost

is really delicate and what we try to do is if it's frozen, keep it frozen.

You try not to disturb what's already there, but inherently the roads end

up making quite a mess of things.

This sense of working with the environment, instead of trying to conquer

it, is reflected in something that's very Alaskan, something called dry cabins.

Hear more from Corey about this experience that he had living in one.

Tell me about that place you used to live in.

I thought that was pretty interesting.

The dry cabin?

Yeah.

So dry cabins are, it's, it's sort of the confluence of the cost of construction

is quite high, so simpler structures are not, not only easier to construct,

but they're easier to maintain and they're a bit more resilient when

it comes to these low temperatures.

So, you know, at minus 40, minus 50, it doesn't really matter how thick

your walls are or how well insulated.

They're still prone to freezing.

And if you live in a dry structure with no pipes, no running water, no running water.

Yep, exactly.

Then your, your structure is a bit more robust and less prone to damage.

And how do you live like that?

Well, we have a water fill stations, the water wagons, one of them.

And people carry blue, five gallon blue jugs, and they fill up their water and

haul it in the back of their car to their, to their, place of residence,

and they use water pretty sparingly.

It's a, it's really interesting.

I think it makes you much more energy and water conscious, where

you carry every gallon in and every gallon out, essentially.

Transportation in Fairbanks has to be in sync with its environment.

Deep cold in the winter and hot summers present huge challenges for the transit

agency, especially since they serve an area roughly the size of New Jersey.

Director of Transit Michelle Denton, gives me the lowdown on their transit

system and some of the challenges of working in extreme climates.

Michelle, it's great, you got a brand new building.

We're inside of it right now here in Fairbanks, and we're

standing in your maintenance shop.

Tell me about this new building and your agency.

So I think the really exciting thing, we've been running transit, you know, for

over 50 years here in the borough, but we've never had a purpose built facility.

Okay.

So, we're just going to be able to serve the public so much better, repair

our buses so much faster, have warm vehicles because we have this new space.

I think the really important thing to note is that this is the biggest investment

the feds have ever taken in our community.

So 80 percent federally funded.

The project was almost 30 million.

so it's really exciting when we see our transit center later this afternoon.

That was really the Fed's first investment in this community.

So the fact that they were willing to see our need and come back and help us

with this project is pretty incredible.

We're very grateful.

And how long did this project take, Michelle?

We got our first First pot of grant money in August of 2016.

And so I've been working on the project since we got that first

pot of money in August of 2016.

I think that's important for our listeners to know that these

projects can take a decade.

They can take a decade.

And actually prior to that first pot of money from the feds.

There were plans for a new transportation facility back in the early 2000s,

so our department really has been working on this for a very long time.

Many, many people before me have been working on this, so yeah.

So, as you and I have discussed, we have these great pull through bays for

my maintenance team, but then we also have warm storage for not only all my

current vehicles, but for future growth.

And that's a big deal here where it gets to be 60 below in the winter.

Yeah.

Well, tell me about your service some.

what you operate here in Fairbanks.

right now we have nine fixed routes.

we currently are running Monday through Friday service, but when we're

fully staffed we run Monday through Saturday service and then, paratransit

we do that in house here as well.

That's great.

And you're part of the borough government, which is like a county?

Correct.

So there are two cities in the borough.

That's the city of Fairbanks and the city of North Pole so

we serve both of those cities.

Very good.

And, tell me about the size and the scope of what you, how many

people are in the town and, and your budget and those kind of things.

Sure.

So the borough has about 90, 000 people and keep in mind

that the borough is massive.

we run paratransit here in house, which is unique to other agencies.

We don't contract that out.

And so when my drivers come in and they're new with us, a lot of times they

will drive paratransit and fixed route.

And so they learn both sides of the house.

which is, I think, pretty unique, but also really necessary for a system of our size.

Yeah.

You know, I have about 40 drivers, when I'm fully staffed, and so it's

important that we're able to cover both paratransit and fixed route.

I mentioned the new building, and I had Michelle, I asked her to take me to

their current building as well, which, we walked around, and like everything here

in Fairbanks, has its own unique history.

originally it was an international harvester dealership, the borough

bought the building, and then, cut a bunch of garage doors in.

So these are not purpose built bays at my current facility.

Certainly not meant to house buses.

And then, back in the eighties, they did an addition back

when you had supercomputers.

So there is another part of the facility that can't stand alone because it doesn't

actually have restrooms or plumbing.

So, it's pretty unique.

and it has served us well for many years, but this facility

will certainly serve us so much better, make us far more efficient.

All right, Michelle, so now we're in your older building and you

just walked me through and you showed me, wow, what a contrast.

Yes, it's a big improvement on our new facility.

We're really excited.

We're hopefully going to be moving into that new facility hopefully

the beginning of September.

That's the goal right now.

Okay, and so this facility here, what will this, you told me, it's like a

just added on, added on, added on.

I can see your you're excited about moving, so what would the

transition process look like?

So, you know, the borough has plans for other departments to still be

here in this facility, which will make it a little bit easier for us so we

can move in stages, but my goal is that we're running operations out of

there at the beginning of September.

After lunch with the whole crew, I asked Transportation Manager, Day

Johnson, about the new facility and what she was looking forward to the most.

as basically the operations manager for day to day services.

So we visited your current facility today, and we also got

to visit your brand new one.

How will that affect operations, you think, going to a new facility?

It will make things smoother and hopefully more efficient.

maybe more attractive for new drivers and seeing, you know,

new buses and new facilities.

It also should help with morale and all the challenges because some of

the drivers are, you know, really been stepping up and working a lot over time.

to make sure that we can serve the public so yeah

what do you have planned for the future you think over the next

five years just moving into a new facility going to cng all that and

yeah our big plans are you know finishing up this building we're transitioning our

whole fleet to cng so once we're done with our bus transition then we'll go

back to our paratransit vans and then after that we will be looking you know

at renewing our software you know cameras and our onboarding software as well

Even working with vendors is a challenge, according to Director Michelle Denton.

Everything they do has to be ready for the 150 degree swing in

temperatures between the depths of winter and the height of summer.

Can you imagine that?

So I like to say that we're not a drop in the bucket, but we're

like a grain of sand on the beach when you're dealing with a vendor.

And so a lot of times it's just explaining the uniqueness of our system,

the uniqueness of our weather, that it's 60 below, but then it can be 90

above, and those different things.

Wow, what a swing!

Yeah, exactly.

And then for my patrons, they may be freezing at a bus stop in the winter

or they may be sweating in the summer, kind of like we are right now, right?

And so I think just helping people to understand, most people haven't

been to Fairbanks, they don't know.

This is your first trip to Alaska, right?

And so I think that's the unique thing is helping people understand,

because I think when people understand, then they want to help.

The winter creates its own environmental issues, something

called temperature inversions.

Have you heard of them before?

This is when cold air settles into the valley floor and it's capped by

warm air above, and that cap keeps pollution trapped at the ground level.

From wood stoves to diesel buses, air pollution in the winter

is a big issue, and it drives environmental policies, there.

As Corey tells me, it also affects what vehicles the transit system uses.

but one other thing that was interesting I thought was you all

were involved in helping them get CMAQ funds, I guess, whatever, to

build a brand new facility, right?

Fast planning helps contribute funding to, you know, various types of projects.

And, money that we were able to help contribute with our CMAQ, the

congestion mitigation air quality, that was to help, with some of their

conversion to compress natural gas.

Okay.

Because of the, the geometry of where we live or the, the geography here,

we're in a low spot in this valley.

So in the winter months, What can happen is, is cold weather can kind of settle

in and then warmer air will sit on top of it and basically keep it trapped so when

it's 40 or 50 below everything that comes out of your tailpipe it's it's almost like

that family circus cartoon you know you can see the trail of where the vehicle

went because the emissions from the tailpipe just linger there in the air for

minutes after the vehicle's gone so we get this really intense accumulation of PM 2.

5 and other air quality issues.

so our organization is really trying to shift to, you know, different

transportation options that emit less.

Michelle tells me more about how the air quality affects their

decision on the fuel type of the buses they're moving forward with.

One of the interesting things that Jackson, the head of your local MPO,

was telling me this morning was the, temperature inversions in the winter and

the air quality issues, and that's part of the reason for this facility is maybe

to move you to compressed natural gas?

Yeah.

Yeah, correct.

So we're in serious non attainment for air quality here in the borough, and

so one of the things that I oversee in the transportation department is

our air quality division, and we run a wood stove change out program, and

through that partnership with, our MPOs, we have gotten some CMAQ funds

for this facility, the idea being that we will eventually convert our

entire fleet to compressed natural gas.

I go down to California a couple weeks from now to inspect our first three

compressed natural gas buses, and then the delivery of those buses this October

will coincide with the completion of our CNG fueling infrastructure, and we

will hopefully have those, buses out on the road by the end of this year.

Finally, I asked Corey about his role as transit planner and his vision for

the future of transit in the region.

So our MPO's focus, like many others is to try to keep a transportation

system, modern and well connected and in a good state of repair.

So how do you interact with the transit agency, who we've had on the

podcast today, their CEO and all that?

Yeah, the, we work with Max Transit on and help facilitate planning and we're

in the process of updating their short and long term transit plans as well as

the coordinated human services plan.

So those, essentially help identify current challenges and then how

to allocate, you know, future investment over the next 10 15 years.

and we're hoping to have that wrapped up here by the, by the end of the year.

So Corey, where do you see Fairbanks going?

Well, I think that, in an ideal world, we start following some of the more

progressive national trends, and we encourage things like micromobility.

You know, things that, have a smaller footprint, in terms of air quality impact.

there's already a pretty robust winter trend.

cycling community here and you know that's that can be hard to believe when

it's 40 below but people you know, we're starting to outfit our buses with specific

racks that you can put fat tire bikes on.

So we're trying to encourage and accommodate those.

Fast planning also has a whole program dedicated to encouraging cycling year

round and we, in addition to repaving and rebuilding roads, we we have programs that

help create new bike paths and basically like augment our non motorized systems.

As I mentioned, it was great meeting everyone in Fairbanks.

at a lovely bed and breakfast there.

I felt like I was Bill Murray, you know, in Groundhog Day.

That's the kind of bed and breakfast it was, you know.

Very cool antique furniture and everything and, you know, coffee in the morning

and a great home cooked breakfast.

the folks that owned it even opened up, they have, one of the old

gold camps, is now turned into a coffee shop and a saloon there.

They opened it up for us, and we had a bunch of folks that we had talked to

along the way come and join us there.

You'll see some of that on the Transit Unplugged TV show, as well as everything

you heard about, on this podcast.

You can see it right here.

with your own eyes as we get to the show later on in the year.

Thanks for being with us every week on Transit Unplugged.

Every Wednesday we drop a new episode, an interesting interview with a top

public transportation executive talking about their city, their region, their

plans, and what you can learn from it.

I'm Paul Comfort.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Transit Unplugged I'm

Tris Hussey editor of the podcast.

And thank you to all our guests this week, and especially to Corey de Liano,

who was the host and fixer for Paul and the crew, while in Fairbank's.

Coming up next week on the show we go from the far Northwest of the U

S to the far Southeast and Miami.

On the show we have ULAs collect.

And angel, Shavria talking about this massive first in the

nation, all electric bus Depot.

I think you'll get a charge out of the episode and be shocked at

how quickly it all came together.

Transit unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people and at

Transit Unplugged we're passionate about telling those stories.

So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.