A few dozen people packed into a City Hall conference room Tuesday evening to weigh in on a proposed update to Anchorage's long-range transportation plan, with some hoping to kill big road projects they don't like.
The Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions, or AMATS -- the city-state planning organization that oversees major road and transportation projects for Anchorage -- is behind schedule on the next major four-year update to the long-range plan. Committee staffers have produced an "interim plan" that they say is essentially a stopgap measure to keep federal funding from drying up at the end of the year.
But some think the interim plan should be updated to delete or delay projects like the Knik Arm Crossing and a proposed extension of Bragaw Street in the university area. Both projects are listed as "short-term" priorities in the current plan.
On Tuesday, a small group of Bragaw extension protesters assembled in front of City Hall, holding signs and chanting, "No road." Some said changes in the state economy and the elections of Gov. Bill Walker and Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz were their main motivators.
"The state financial situation is different. There's a mayor who campaigned on not having a bridge," Lois Epstein, a former member of the AMATS technical advisory committee who helped organize the rally, said in an interview earlier this month. "The lay of the land is different."
Epstein said there's also interest in deleting the Bragaw extension project (officially known as the U-Med District Northern Access project) and inserting more projects for bicyclists and pedestrians.
But at the start of Tuesday's hearing, Craig Lyon, Anchorage transportation planning manager, warned that deleting projects or even shifting them from the short-term section to the long-term could have serious ramifications for federal funding for local road projects, like repairs to Abbott Road on the Anchorage Hillside.
To compile a long-range plan with a 20-year outlook, AMATS uses a computerized transportation model that analyzes population and employment data to show future transportation trends. The current model expires Dec. 31, and Lyon said AMATS staffers are in the process of updating it.
But there have been delays, and the new model won't be ready until at least June or July of 2016, Lyon said. He said it will likely be mid- to late 2017 before the new plan is approved.
If the city and state miss the December deadline, the federal government will freeze funding until the update is adopted, Lyon said -- jeopardizing new projects or the next phases of projects already underway. He said officials just want to have the interim plan with updated financial information in place so work can begin in earnest on the full-fledged 2040 update.
"This is just an administrative exercise to make sure the clock restarts," Lyon said. He said he's concerned that changes would require further review that could slow the process down.
Epstein, meanwhile, argued that there were "many months remaining" before the federal deadline. She and others earlier this month demanded the evening public hearing on the interim plan. Because no projects were added or deleted, the plan is currently not set to go before the city Planning and Zoning Commission or the Anchorage Assembly, Lyon said.
Lyon said this is only the second time since 2001 that the committee has put forward an interim plan, at a cost of roughly $80,000.
In the first hour of Tuesday's hearing, people who testified mainly spoke out against the Knik Arm bridge and the Bragaw extension, advocating for either switching the projects to the "long-term" section of the plan or removing them from the plan entirely. Not everyone was opposed: Anchorage resident Tom McGrath told the AMATS staff that the state and city should finish the projects that have been started.
Both projects appear to be moving forward: Earlier this month, Gov. Walker gave the go-ahead for the Knik Arm project to resume work after a moratorium, though that did not mean the project had final approval.
In February, DOWL HKM unveiled a preferred route for the Bragaw extension that included a preliminary design for three roundabouts and three pedestrian bridges, at a cost of $19.4 million.
This is not the first time an administration change has coincided with efforts to de-prioritize major projects. In 2009, shortly before Mayor Dan Sullivan took office, the AMATS policy committee voted to move the Knik Arm Crossing from the short-term list of projects to the long-term. But the mayors of Wasilla and Houston sued over the change of status, leading to a settlement that put the proposed bridge back into the short-term section of the plan.
At least two state legislators, Sen. Berta Gardner and Rep. Andy Josephson, promoted Tuesday's meeting as an opportunity to give testimony to Berkowitz. But Berkowitz was never scheduled to attend Tuesday's meeting, as mayors don't typically attend open houses, said spokesman Myer Hutchison.
Hutchinson said the Berkowitz administration hasn't yet formed a position on whether changes should be made to the interim plan, and is aware of consequences associated with delays.
"Those decisions haven't been made," Hutchinson said.
While he missed the Tuesday hearing, Berkowitz will be attending Thursday's meeting of the AMATS policy committee, on which he serves in his capacity as mayor, Hutchinson said.
AMATS is taking public comment on the interim plan until July 27 through a link on its website on muni.org.