Transportation
Planning
Transportation
planning relies on land use planning. In Anchorage, that linkage
has yet to be developed.
Anchorage
2020, Anchorage's Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2001 with
the support of hundreds of citizens.
It calls for change - from a sprawled, auto oriented
western American town - into a modern, northern city that nurtures
its neighborhoods and protects its parks and wildlife by concentrating
its urban growth and providing transportation choices beyond
the automobile.
Linking
land use and transportation decisions is still a major challenge
in Anchorage, partly because transportation and land use functions
are separately administered within local government. Land
use is a Planning Department function while transportation is
within the Traffic Department.
Since
Anchorage's Long Range Transportation Plan
plan controls billions of transportation dollars to be invested
over the next twenty years, it greatly controls how effectively
Anchorage will achieve its comprehensive plan goals to become
a great northern city and
- grow up, not out,
- protect neighborhoods and open spaces,
- improve air and water quality,
- reduce reliance on the automobile,
- improve transit and
- make it safe and easy to bike and walk.
ACC’s
goal: For Anchorage
to implement Anchorage 2020 through its Long Range Transportation
Plan.
Long Range Transportation
Plan (LRTP)
Transportation
planner Walt Parker claims that state proposals in the 1970’s
to dissect Anchorage with major highways led to community polarization
that was not resolved during city and borough government unification,
or since then, leaving Anchorage without a unified transportation
vision or plan.
ACC’s
goal: Anchorage
rewrote its LRTP for the first time in over a decade. Unfortunately,
it failed to follow the guidance of Anchorage 2020. It
is a plan that continues reliance on cars and more roads. That
strategy has failed in many other cities. ACC will continue
to work for a process to:
- Broadly involve the public in directing future
land uses and transportation investments.
- Bring citizens together in workshops or "charettes"
to develop "scenarios" of Anchorage's future land
uses and transportation systems,
- Refine the general land uses in Anchorage
2020 into density patterns neighborhoods will support.
- Link land use and transportation planning,
- Using up-to-date computer modeling techniques
to examine the strengths and weaknesses of different future
land use "scenarios" in achieving the goals and
objectives of Anchorage 2020.
- Refine land use and transportation alternatives
until Anchorage comes as close as possible to achieving
Anchorage 2020 goals.
Link:
www.muni.org/transplan/
Anchorage
Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS)
AMATS
is the federally required Metropolitan Planning Organization
of state and local officials that spends Anchorage’s federal
transportation dollars (that are received in a 6:1 ratio – 6
dollars returned for 1 dollar contributed as fuel tax.) Since
Anchorage is the only local government represented at AMATS,
it should take a leadership role in developing local policies
and budgets, in comparison with most MPO’s made of several local governments coming together as a regional
organization
Transportation
Improvement Program (TIP)
AMATS’ three year budget or “program” lists the projects and
programs that allocate Anchorage’s share of the federal transportation
dollars coming to Alaska. This program or budget is regularly
amended, making it hard to track spending.
ACC’s goal: For
AMATS’ TIP (or budget) to
o Implement Anchorage 2020.
o Balance investments across road, transit and non-motorized
transportation investments.
http://www.muni.org/transplan/tip.cfm
Citizens
Transportation Plan
The Anchorage
Citizens Coalition prepared a “Citizens Transportation Plan”
in spring 2005 to provide depth and detail for Anchorage’s 2005
Long Range Transportation Plan. The Citizens Transportation
Plan provides realistic steps to begin shaping the northern
community described in Anchorage 2020.
The Citizens
Plan recognizes that Anchorage’s transportation system must
sustain the city’s economic health by accommodating the needs
of businesses and supporting Anchorage’s role in the state and
international economies. The Plan addresses local transportation
needs for cost-effective
road, transit, freight, bicycle, and pedestrian improvements. It helps make Anchorage a city that attracts
families who might otherwise choose to live in the Mat Su Valley.
Other northern
cities around the globe rely on compact land development and
comfortable, frequent transit to make their cities attractive,
healthy, functional places to live and work. in order to demonstrate how transportation
investments can improve livability while providing mobility.
The plan offers comprehensive policy objectives as well
as investments listed by geographic area to clarify the plan’s
intent and allow easier understanding of proposals.
ACC’s
Citizens Transportation Plan
Regional Transportation Planning
Organization (RTPO)
The
RTPO grew from periodic meetings between the Anchorage Assembly
and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly, which together contain
well over half the population of Alaska. The group adopted
its first mission and bylaws in 2003.
That
same year, the Alaska Department of Transportation eliminated
all funding to staff the organization, explaining other regional
transportation priorities were more important.
The
RTPO has adopted project priorities for federal funding which
include developing a regional transportation plan that would
include a regional visioning process.
Link:
http://www.dowl.com/projects/regtranplan
ACC’s goal: For the RTPO to
o
Work with citizens to establish community values
held in common between Mat Su and Anchorage residents, and develop
a “vision” of our collective future.
o
Build a regional transportation system appropriate
for our sub arctic environment.
Important Road Studies
Knik
Arm Crossing
A bridge from Government Hill across the Inlet.
The project is a big one that has been rejected
by Anchorage citizens for 40 years. On February 12, 2007,
Anchorage's Planning
& Zoning Commission rejected it again. The
Commissioners agreed that the proposal is so flawed that
"nothing we can do here tonight" could make it beneficial
to the city of Anchorage.
Despite that, the Assembly voted to recommend that
the Knik
Arm Crossing project ("KAC") be added to Anchorage's
list of necessary transportation projects for the Long
Range Transportation Plan ("LRTP").
We
have prepared a
fact sheet we hope you will help us distribute. Print
copies and give them to everyone you can.
On
June 14, 2007 Michael Replogle, Transportation Director
for the national non-profit Environmental Defense, spoke
to AMATS regarding the KAC. Here
are his comments.
When
you are stuck in traffic, do you ever think "If only we
had a bridge across the Inlet, I'd be home by now?" When
you read about another traffic fatality, do you think
"A bridge would make driving safer?" We didn't think so.
(Read more ..)
For
extensive information, go here: http://www.knikbridgefacts.org/
For
ACC's fact sheet click
here.
East
Dowling Extension
between Lake Otis and Abbott Loop /Bragaw Road.
The project would consist of reconstructing Dowling
Road from Lake Otis Parkway east to Norm Drive and constructing
a new portion of Dowling Road from Norm Drive to Abbott
Loop Road, a total distance of approximately one mile.
http://www.dowl.com/projects/eastdowling
East
48th/Boniface Extension
south of Tudor along the north boundary of Far North
Bicentennial Park.
The MOA is proposing an extension of
48th Avenue that will parallel Tudor Road and provide access
to future development in the 3500 Tudor area. This road would
connect the intersection of Boniface Parkway to the intersection
of 48th Avenue and Bragaw Street and would connect to Abbott
Loop and Dowling Roads
Take a look, you thought that was natural parkland,
didn't you?
http://www.dowl.com/projects/48thavenue/index.htm
Bragaw
or Abbott Loop Extension
between Tudor Rd and E 68th Ave
Including
the Bragaw Extension in Anchorage's 1991 Long Range Transportation
Plan was an important element in motivating the Anchorage Assembly
to reject the plan that year.
For
years, citizens fought the road because it would cut cross important
creeks and wetlands that drain from east Anchorage's Chugach
State Park wilderness. Nearby residents fear the extension
will bring traffic noise and air pollution. Road builders
say it provides an essential connection within Anchorage's transportation
grid.
Numerous
attempts were made since 1991 to fund the Bragaw Extension with
federal transportation dollars.
Finally,
in part to avoid the environmental and public process requirements
that come with federal funding, Bragaw proponents inserted the
road in a statewide bond package at the 11th hour
of the 2002 legislative session. They did not notify fellow
legislators or the public. The next fall, two thirds of
voters said yes to a statewide bond package that included $37,000,000
for the Bragaw Extension.
The
Bragaw extension is expected to be completed in late 2007.
http://www.dowl.com/projects/abbottloop/index.htm
East Anchorage Study of Transportation
(EAST) 2003
Intended
to study alternatives to building the Bragaw extension across
parklands between Tudor Road and Abbott Loop Road, EAST ended
in the summer 2003 before completing final modeling.
ACC
cautions against full acceptance of EAST’s conclusions based
on narrow study purposes and limited transportation modeling.
Contact
Dowl Engineers at 907 562 2000
Citizen Organizations
Strawberry
Road Committee
A
group of citizens living near Strawberry Road (in southwest
Anchorage) researched alternatives to Municipal plans to build
a wide, fast, expensive collector road that they feel will compromise
neighborhood character, endanger pedestrians and eliminate mature
trees. Their report is a wide-ranging compendium citing
many national experts and up to date traffic engineering strategies.
The
Strawberry Road Committee welcomes participation of other neighborhoods
threatened by road proposals that will harm Anchorage's quality
of life while increasing taxpayer costs.
http://www.geocities.com/sandlakecc3/strawberryrd/srcreport.html
Anchorage
Road Coalition
As
the Strawberry Road Committee met with community councils and
neighborhood associations, they found others who were concerned
about overly wide and overly speedy road proposals.
Groups and individuals banded together to form the Anchorage
Road Coalition that promotes Context Sensitive Design in road
planning and construction. Roads of concern include the Old Glenn
Highway near Fire Lake, De Armoun Road, McCrae Road, Chugach
Way and others. Contact
Frank or Jeanne McQueary 243-2999
What can
I do?
ANSWER
CD's of
the 170 page plan are available from the municipality at 343-8406
or
download the Long Range Transportation Plan from www.muni.org/transplan/
Endorse
ACC's Citizens Transportation
Plan.
Use ACC's
Long Range Transportation Plan Alert
for writing comments or testifying.
More information
is available from ACC's Anchorage Daily News Compass
published September 19, 2005
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