02/04/2024
Land Use
ONGOING: We might be getting more snow. How much snow the system can handle, and how it affects the operations of the city is ultimately a question of land use. Is our built environment designed to be fragile, or resilient? What if Anchorage was designed to make the most of its wintry environment?
In terms of streets and right of way, here’s the AKDOT winter maintenance priority map and here is the MOA’s winter maintenance map. Of note: AKDOT recently mentioned adding a dedicated sidewalk plow operator and a new contract to clear sidewalks, yet the NL/Benson sidewalks in Midtown still hadn't been cleared as of yesterday, 6 days after last Sunday's snowfall.
ONGOING: The HOME Project appears to have been scheduled to go before the Planning & Zoning Commission on March 18, 2024. HOME is the project that simplifies and aligns current zoning with what was intended by the 2040 Land Use Plan. Find a whole stack of materials, including what looks to be the most current proposal, here.
Transportation
NEW: State Reps, Senators, and Assembly Members push back on AKDOT’s proposed Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP): Nine state representatives and senators and three Assembly members sent letters to US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg requesting that AKDOT allocate funding to address the safety issues of its many dangerous roads in Anchorage, especially the Gambell/Ingra couplet through Fairview. More on this topic:
At the House Finance Committee meeting on February 2, 2024, electeds pressed AKDOT to explain its difficulties in meeting public expectations and running the agency effectively.
For a bonus on how some things never change: at another finance meeting a year ago, Representative Josephson wondered why AKDOT hadn’t been asking for assistance in plowing from that season’s large snow event. From the minutes “He was surprised that the department did not ask for a "life buoy and more support in November and December of 2022”.
NEW: Winter Bike Fest 2024 continues, with winter bike to work day on February 9th.
NEW: AMATS Transportation Improvement Program (TIP): Amendment 2 for the has been sent out for public comment. Most changes are housekeeping details (updated cost estimates or timelines based on progress to date), but a few are of interest:
Northern Lights sidewalk repairs are delayed from 2024 to 2026.
The multi-use Pathway along the railroad from Tudor to Northern Lights is removed because the required match cannot be met. Due to land ownership, the match would need to come from park funding, which is already fully accounted for through 2026. This appears to have been one of the top 50 trail projects since at least 1997.
AKDOT requested several changes to their projects with no explanation, including:
Gambell St utility pole undergrounding is delayed from 2024 to 2025.
Funding for Seward Highway 36th Ave Interchange has been added, possibly for design and/or right-of-way acquisition; it looks like construction would start after 2026.
Public comments on TIP Amendment #2 can be sent to 82657@publicinput.com by March 15th.
ONGOING: Fairview Highway (PEL) open house on February 7th, 2024. This Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) project public meeting is a new look at AKDOT’s Ingra/Gambell couplet through Fairview (even though the latest STIP shows construction dollars zeroed out through 2027). Related: the Reconnecting Fairview project.
LAST WEEK: The AMATS Policy Committee and Technical Advisory Committee had a joint meeting on the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) that DOT&PF recently submitted to FHWA following a 180-day extension. The STIP and a summary of changes from the first draft, following public comment, are available on the project dashboard. DOT&PF also finally answered questions about how projects were selected for inclusion in the STIP, pointing to 17 AAC 05.170 (classification), 175 (scoring), and 200 (projects to include without scoring). DOT reps claim those regulations are out of date, often based on federal regulations that are no longer in place.