Assembly demands action on Anchorage road safety after 13th pedestrian killed this year

Editor’s note: After this story initially published, the Daily News became aware of another pedestrian fatality that took place in April, bringing up the total number of pedestrian deaths so far this year to 13. The story has been updated to reflect this information.

Three Anchorage Assembly members on Tuesday proposed measures they want to see immediately implemented to make the city’s roadways safer.

The policy recommendations come just a few days after two more pedestrians were killed on Anchorage roads.

On Saturday evening, a 38-year-old woman was struck by an SUV as she crossed Northern Lights Boulevard. The woman, Crystal Anvil, was the 13th pedestrian to be killed by a vehicle in Anchorage since the start of the year. And on Friday night, 79-year-old Ambrose Aguchak was hit by two vehicles as he crossed the New Seward Highway near East 36th Avenue, according to the Anchorage Police Department.

“That means in the municipality alone, we are on track to surpass the statewide record for pedestrian deaths, which was 13 in 2022,” Assembly member Meg Zaletel, who represents the Midtown district where several of this year’s fatalities have happened, told reporters Tuesday. “I am outraged at the lack of outrage in this community.”

Zaletel drafted a resolution with co-sponsors Karen Bronga and Daniel Volland, who represent East Anchorage and downtown.

The measure has three policy recommendations. The first is installing more and better lighting along the kind of busy, high-speed roads where pedestrian deaths are most common.

The second is a proposal to lower speed limits by “at least 10 miles per hour, not to exceed 35 miles per hour, on corridors where fatalities have occurred or those with the same defining characteristics.”

Lastly, the measure calls for an education campaign about “the intersection of pedestrian safety, motor vehicle speed, and road conditions.”

The resolution, if approved by a majority of the Assembly’s 12 members, would also make October “Pedestrian Safety Month” each year.

“Excessive speed kills ... We cannot continue to treat our urban centers as super highways, prioritizing vehicle movement over safety,” Volland said. “We can do something today. The municipality and state should work together. It’s time for action, not another drawn-out study.”

According to Zaletel, 164 pedestrians were killed by vehicles between 2000 and 2022. The figure does not include numbers from last year, or the 13 people who have died in such incidents so far during 2024.

That puts Anchorage among the five deadliest cities in the country for pedestrians, with roughly four pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents this year, according to data cited in the resolution from Smart Growth America, a policy and advocacy nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Within the municipality, many of the largest, busiest roads are owned and managed by the state.

“The majority of pedestrian fatalities in 2024 have taken place on Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities controlled roads with at least four lanes and speeds of 45 miles per hour,” the resolution states.

According to Zaletel, there are two straightforward ways to slow down vehicles along major corridors like Northern Lights Boulevard, Minnesota Drive, Tudor Road and similar arterials. The city’s traffic engineer could reduce speed limits posted on signs. Or the state could designate those roadways “safety corridors,” as it does on portions of the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm where there are blind turns, and require lower speeds.

“I’ve been advocating (for) them, since 2022, to apply that in an urban context,” Zaletel said. “Either way, I think there’s a way to get lower speed limits.”

Enforcing speed limits, though, requires traffic police. And Zaletel acknowledged that the Anchorage Police Department is currently grappling with low staffing.

There are limits on how much the Assembly can do on the issue. The resolution’s three sponsors are asking for immediate steps to be presented by the state and LaFrance administration by Oct. 8, the date of the Assembly’s next regularly scheduled meeting after the measure is introduced on Tuesday. As an appropriating body, they said, the Assembly is willing and able to spend money to solve the problem, but it needs actual policy measures to fund.

“Frankly, only the administration and (Department of Transportation) are the ones who can drive this to action,” Zaletel said.

Four state representatives, Democrats Andrew Gray, Genevieve Mina and Zack Fields and independent Alyse Galvin, attended the press conference and expressed a willingness to work the issue from the Legislature.