Traffic congestion in Anchorage got better in the last five years, a new study says, but to break our worst bottlenecks we need to prioritize basics over megaprojects.
The study by Cambridge Systematics shows traffic flowing a bit easier at 14 of 21 intersections measured in 2009 and 2013, with five the same and two worse. The analysis is part of a regular update of transportation plans by the joint city-state Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions? funding system.
In general, traffic is not a major problem in Anchorage. Troublesome congestion happens mainly during the after-work rush (much less in the morning), and mostly in the midtown area and along the Glenn Highway corridor at the city's northern entrance.
But while visitors from Seattle or Los Angeles may laugh at what we call congestion, Anchorage traffic does waste time and energy and hurts neighborhoods and the environment.
The reason we've made progress shows the path to more progress. Traffic got a little better over a long period thanks to many individual changes and because of work on meat-and-potatoes road projects that didn't bring glory to politicians.
Without spending on megaprojects over the last decade, more money could have been spent on these basics, and you could be getting home from work faster tonight.
The population of Anchorage and the Mat-Su area grew during the study period, as did the economy. But our miles of driving leveled off. Following a national trend, Anchorage driving miles peaked in 2005 and never returned to that level.
Economic changes and high gas prices during the study period had a role in that reduction, but so did social change. Young people today drive less than their parents' generation.
When I was young, every kid wanted to drive. On weekend nights, teenagers endlessly circled a strip around Northern Lights and Benson boulevards. My own children, and many of their friends, have deferred getting their licenses and many millennials don't want cars at all.
Anyone can see a lot more people are bicycling for transportation in Anchorage, although the Cambridge Systematics report doesn't show that. Craig Lyon, coordinator of the city-state transportation program, said the municipality has begun gathering bike data as it does for cars, installing counter loops under bike trails, but that hasn't gone on long enough to find a trend.
Many years of advocacy by bike commuters is bearing fruit and the city is slowly changing.
The People Mover bus system has actually lost riders with a pair of steep fare increases, a dated route system and short funding from the unsympathetic administration of former Mayor Dan Sullivan. People Mover will work on updating its system beginning this year.
Besides changes in behavior, the road network improved with links and turn-pockets that moved cars better. On Tudor Road, which clogs up every evening, cars passed more quickly through the Lake Otis Parkway intersection thanks to widening there and the extension of Elmore Road. The connection of Dowling Road across town also eased east-west traffic.
But sometimes intersection improvements only move problems. After cars started moving faster through Lake Otis and Tudor, the intersection at Elmore and Tudor clogged up. On the Glenn, the overpass at Bragaw Road moved the city's worst intersection just to the west, to Airport Heights Road.
Computer modeling more than a decade ago (when I was consulting with the mayor's office on transportation issues), showed that we could ease traffic across the bowl by connecting the Seward and Glenn highways with interchanges that would eliminate traffic lights.
After a big political snafu about picking a route and funding the project, Gov. Sean Parnell canceled that highway-to-highway connection. But politicians come and go while transportation bureaucrats stay. The connection remains the long-term goal of road planners, who see it as a way to move cars faster, reduce pollution from stop-and-go traffic and lessen the need for neighborhood-damaging road widenings on connecting routes.
Jennifer Witt, a planner with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said the entire project would cost $700 million to $1 billion. But it could be done slowly, an interchange at a time, using Alaska's generous and predictable allocation of federal highway funding.
According to a report by engineer Lois Epstein of the Wilderness Society, $250 million is available to be redirected from the Knik Arm Bridge and Juneau Access Road projects. That money, which is 90 percent federal with a 10 percent state match, can only be used on transportation.
With the state's finances in crisis, the megaprojects appear dead. Last year, Gov. Bill Walker ordered completion of an environmental study to close out the Juneau project. He allowed DOT to apply for a federal loan for the bridge, but he told me the state isn't obligated to accept the loan if it is approved.
The first two interchanges needed to connect the Glenn and Seward — at Airport Heights on the Glenn and at 36th Avenue on the Seward — would cost a total of $126 million. A huge amount of money, but only half of what is sitting idle in the dead megaprojects. And spending it now would create jobs.
This summer, DOT will use federal money to add lanes to the Seward Highway from Dimond Boulevard to Dowling Road and to improve the Dowling roundabout, for $87 million. It will reconstruct the Muldoon overpass on the Glenn Highway to improve its capacity, for $48 million. Major work on the Seward Highway beyond Girdwood includes replacing the many bridges near Portage, for $157 million.
Worthy projects, but how were they chosen? This whole system of transportation priorities is opaque to the public and glacial in speed. We would be lucky to see the Glenn and Seward highways connected within 20 years.
But I must grudgingly admit that slow, steady change with bureaucrats in charge may be working. As citizen advocates have engaged with transportation professionals, our system has slowly improved for bikes and cars. Elected leaders didn't do that — in fact, their grandiose ideas and inconsistency sometimes hindered it.
Charles Wohforth's column appears three times weekly. On many days, he commutes in his slippers.
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