As Anchorage population shrinks, planners consider scaled-down connector for Seward and Glenn highways

With Anchorage’s population sliding, state transportation planners have tossed aside plans for a fast-flowing freeway that connects the Seward and Glenn highways.

Instead, they are now looking at proposals for a slower, slimmer parkway, with speed limits of 40-45 mph, two lanes in each direction, and landscaping when possible.

The Seward and Glenn currently connect using multiple lanes on Gambell and Ingra streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues.

That highway connection, established in the 1960s, cuts through the Fairview neighborhood that was once the heart of Anchorage’s Black community.

Despite stoplights and 35 mph limits on Gambell and Ingra, the streets are known for speeding and too many crashes involving pedestrians, residents say. The situation has contributed to neglect and disinvestment in Fairview, they say.

The shift to parkways comes in response to public feedback opposing a freeway connection, said Galen Jones, the state’s manager for the Seward-Glenn Connection study, the latest planning effort to propose changing the highway connection.

Many people who have commented on earlier proposals said they don’t want a freeway connection, he said.

“They were opposed to spending massive amounts of money on a solution that would potentially still have major impacts to the Fairview neighborhood and other neighborhoods,” he said. “With six lanes of high-speed traffic, they were concerned about noise, the large footprint and the amount of residential and business relocations.”

The parkway options now under consideration would not use Gambell and Ingra. That would allow those two streets to be improved so they’re safer for pedestrians and cyclists and friendlier for businesses, Jones said.

“That’s the main thing. We’re trying to reconnect Fairview,” he said.

Allen Kemplen, a member of the Fairview Community Council executive board, said the shift from a freeway concept to parkway options is a “big deal.”

“It means there will be less concrete and less impact to adjacent areas it passes through,” said Kemplen, a retired state transportation planner.

[Highways connecting in Anchorage’s Fairview have long marred the neighborhood. Renewed efforts aim to fix that.]

Population drop helps spur reconsideration

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has looked at building a freeway link between the highways for decades.

The efforts have included the Highway to Highway project, or H2H, canceled by the state more than a decade ago.

Today, projections for significant growth in Anchorage’s population have slowed. The city’s population has dipped annually since 2016, falling below 300,000. It’s expected to slip further in the coming years, in part driven by more people leaving Alaska than arriving.

Despite the drop, traffic is expected to grow at the highway connection in the coming decades, Jones said. But the increase will be slight, supported by population growth in the nearby Matanuska-Susitna region that’s still anticipated, he said.

“Anchorage is not growing, so that was a major shift in the type and size of facility that is being proposed,” he said.

[Alaska could be facing its first long-term decline in population and resulting economic slowdown]

Also, public sentiment has changed, Jones said.

People are now interested in finding roadway solutions that focus on safety and support walking and biking, rather than moving the most vehicles quickly through dense urban areas, he said.

Parkways, and other options

Two of the parkway options would connect the highways by carving a new route southeast of Merrill Field.

• Alternative D, which has two variants, calls for a bridge over the Chester Greenbelt northeast of Fireweed Lane, requiring bridge piers to be built on parkland. The route would avoid Woodside Park near 20th Avenue and Sitka Street Park near 15th Avenue, a change from the freeway option. These variations would cost around $400 million.

• Alternative C calls for a tunnel beneath a portion of 15th Avenue. The option would cost around $500 million.

• A third, more expensive parkway option, Alternative AB, would follow the current route through Fairview. But the parkway would run in a tunnel beneath Ingra Street. The route would run near Third Avenue, instead of along Fifth and Sixth avenues. It would employ a second tunnel under a portion of south Mountain View. It would cost an estimated $743 million.

Two additional proposals are also under consideration.

They would not create new roads, but they would reduce lanes at the Fifth-Sixth Avenue thoroughfare as well as Ingra and Gambell streets.

They would be neither a freeway or a parkway. They would also open space for pedestrians and bicyclists.

But these two options, MTP 2050 and MTP Plus, have raised concerns that motorists would avoid the route, and would instead use streets through neighborhoods such as Airport Heights Drive or Lake Otis Parkway. The state’s traffic modeling shows that heavy traffic — about 27,000 vehicle trips daily — might take those alternate routes, Jones said.

“We don’t want to push the problem somewhere else, so that’s why we’re looking at parkways as a dedicated facility for vehicles to use,” Jones said.

Bringing back ‘economic vitality’

The parkway options under consideration are refined versions of freeway proposals that state planners considered last year. Since parkways are slower, they allow for tighter curves than a freeway, reducing the impacts to private property.

The parkways also would allow major improvements at Gambell and Ingra, with space for wider sidewalks, storing plowed snow, as well as bike lanes, landscaping and street parking. The streets could support shops and restaurants, Jones said.

Most of the options under consideration would allow Gambell Street to be slimmed down, from four one-way lanes to two lanes going both directions. The street could be upgraded with a main-street feel, a goal of the Fairview community, Jones said.

In that case, Gambell might look like other downtown streets in Anchorage, such as Fourth Avenue near Snow City Cafe, he said.

Under the proposals, a 1.5-mile-long greenway would be built between Gambell and Ingra, linking the Ship Creek and Chester Creek trail systems, another goal of the Fairview community. It would create a trail system looping around Anchorage’s core, a rarity for a city, Jones said.

Kemplen, with the Fairview Community Council, said the council plans to vote and determine its preferences soon.

The new proposals show that state road planners are listening to the neighborhood’s concerns, he said.

“It’s not over until it’s over, but I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said.

“We have to bring economic prosperity back to this part of town,” he said. “The way these roads were built have robbed us of our economic vitality and we need to fix that.”

State transportation planners are taking public comment on the latest proposals through Jan. 23.

This summer they expect to trim the options to one or two, Jones said.

A final proposal, when one is selected, would need to go through a rigorous federal environmental review.

That will also have public input, Jones said.