A scaled-back version of an ambitious, long-discussed project to connect the Glenn and Seward Highways through Anchorage and eliminate a number of stoplights through town could be taking shape.
For the past year and a half, controversy and cost have stalled the project, says state Department of Transportation regional director Robert Campbell.
But recently, Campbell and Mayor Dan Sullivan have been discussing, via letters, the idea of breaking the huge proposed highway-to-highway project into more affordable pieces. The mayor is suggesting starting in Midtown, where congestion is the worst.
The letter exchange is the first sign that the project may come back to life since the state abruptly halted a public process advancing the project in early 2010.
The first part of the delay, Campbell said last year, was because of a request by the governor's office to put public involvement on hold due to controversy over some of the seven route alternatives through the neighborhoods that the state was considering.
Now the main problem is cost, said Campbell.
A DOT project manager last year estimated it at $700 million. It could be more than $800 million, a recent transportation planning document shows.
At the time the highway-to-highway project was conceived, the idea was federal highway funds would pay for most of it.
But the state is expecting Congress to cut federal highway funds. "Right now we believe there will be a 30 percent reduction in federal funds," Campbell said.
In letters to Mayor Sullivan and federal transportation officials in June, Campbell said the Federal Highway Administration is already concerned that "the State is currently developing more projects than can be reasonably funded."
He suggested smaller, incremental projects.
Sullivan, responding last week, said he strongly supports that idea, and proposed the road builders build an interchange at 36th Avenue and the Seward Highway as a "first step toward addressing the severe Midtown congestion problem."
Now there are stop lights at 36th and the Seward Highway. An interchange would make it more like a freeway, with one road raised over the other as it is at Tudor and the Seward Highway.
The state could tackle intersections at Benson and Northern Lights Boulevards and Fireweed Lane after that, the mayor's letter says.
Sullivan is on vacation this week and not available for comment, a staffer in the mayor's office said.
But city road planners are counting on highway-to-highway to relieve future traffic jams in Midtown and northeast Anchorage.
"It's very important that that thing stays alive," said Craig Lyon, coordinator of AMATS, a city-state committee that decides how to spend much of the federal road money in Anchorage.
The Glenn-Seward corridor through the city handles between 50,000 to 60,000 vehicles per day and projections show that number will double by 2035, Sullivan's letter said.
Without the highway-to-highway project, road builders would have to add lanes to a lot of other main roads like Tudor Road, Lake Otis Parkway, C Street and Benson, said Lyon.
Sullivan also made a pitch for the state to complete an environmental impact statement, including a route choice, for the entire highway-to-highway project.
Leaving the question of how the two highways would ultimately connect unanswered means private investors and developers in the area would continue to face uncertainty, said Sullivan.
"With the work that is already completed, we are so close to answering the corridor location question. Let's not miss this opportunity."
Campbell, from the state DOT, said there's a worry that if the state does environmental studies for the entire project and then doesn't complete it, they'd have to pay back some part of any federal money used on the project.
But he said he's willing to talk about it with Sullivan.
"The mayor may have some compelling arguments."
Campbell said he intends to get together with Sullivan in a couple of weeks.
Reach Rosemary Shinohara at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.
By ROSEMARY SHINOHARA
rshinohara@adn.com