Highway to Highway
Seward to Glenn Highway Connection
The Seward Highway to
Glenn Highway Connection project (H2H) will explore connecting the Seward
and Glenn Highways into Anchorage's first freeway through the city. The
actual route has not been chosen yet. A consistent part of the plan is that
a length of the highway will run under surface level with broad walkways
and road crossings above.
Previous transportation
studies and adopted plans have recommended connecting these highways. The
environmental review process began in July 2008. The purpose of the
project, alternatives to meet the needs, and the project's effects on the
natural and human environment will be determined through the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) process.
The project's team
promises that "Together, we will find a solution that balances
transportation needs, engineering safety, community values, environmental
compatibility, and financial feasibility."
Originally budgeted at
$750 million, Anchorage Citizens Coalition sees the project falling far
from the mark on all those criteria compared with many alternative uses of
the money. The freeway also challenges Anchorage 2020 goals to protect and
improve neighborhoods, maintain clear, healthful air, provide
transportation choices, and reduce congestion.
Contents:
Will this project create the city envisioned in Anchorage
2020?
What can you do?
Public
Meetings & Hearings
H2H-
Documents for Review
Highway
to Highway
Your voice is needed
to reshape this project to incorporate essential community values.
The H2H project team needs to hear that
you want the project to:
- improve public
health
- promote affordable housing near jobs
- clean the air
- promote long term economic growth
- improve
neighborhoods
- improve mobility for
people who live here.
The project's current Purpose and Need statement and
Screening Criteria leave out these important
goals and focus on relieving congestion on one stretch of road - the
Gambell-Ingra couplet through Fairview.
Brief comments citing these important issues will make a big
difference.
Submit Comments
Online: It takes just a minute. You can copy and
paste. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to submit your
comments to the Highway to Highway project planners
because right
now it's crucial they hear from the community.
The Citizens Coalition has requested
consideration of an alternative to the highway connection focusing on
changes in land use and other transportation modes. Read it here.
"Take a quick look at the following
background info. Feel free to raise these issues.
-
The H2H project will cost $1 billion (when all interchanges, related
projects are counted) in an era when transportation dollars are
shrinking. Money will be drawn from other needed improvements, such
as public transportation, local roads and safety on the Seward
Highway.
-
Anchorage's Long
Range Transportation Plan (LRTP)
shows how a freeway through Fairview
will be severely congested twenty years after being built (Figure 7-17, p
76.) Increased air pollution will harm families living there.
-
Thousands of residents supported improved public transportation, infill and
redevelopment, and safer biking and walking in Anchorage 2020.
This community vision should determine the goals of the Highway to Highway
project. We should not assume a freeway is our only answer to relieve
congestion.
-
National transportation law and funding is expected to shift funding
options from road construction into public transportation, high speed rail,
neighborhood revitalization with biking and walking. In Anchorage
we can begin to build a modern transportation system.
-
Recent speakers from Seattle
and Portland showed how infill
and redevelopment, public transportation, and redesigned streets facilitate
increased walking, biking and modern public transportation.
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Anchorage deserves a first rate
study of alternatives to building this freeway. For transit to really
work as a transportation choice, it should be combined with affordable
homes near jobs, streets designed for safe walking and biking, and
"demand management" (such as the UPass system providing free
transit for UAA students and staff.) The ongoing environmental impact
study needs experts who have successfully developed these alternatives
before in other cities.
An
article in the Anchorage Daily News on August 6, 2008.
Costly connection: the crosstown highway
Quoted is Anchorage
Citizens Coalition's president John Weddleton who "believes the cost
of the highway is too much, when other projects would help the city
more." Great story.
However, a couple of
facts were off base:
1. Darrell Hess is quoted
as saying the freeway would remove "200,000 trips per day from Tudor,
15th, Gambell and Muldoon."
In fact: In 2006 highway planners estimated 100,000 trips would be removed
from other streets. Even that number is a sham. Fully 2/3 or 65,000 would
come from the existing Gambell-Ingra corridor. Only - - 8500 from Lake Otis
- 8500 from Northern Lights - 3000 from 15th - 9000 from 3rd would come
from other roads according to the computer model. Unfortunately, those
trips come at a cost of increased pollution for Fairview's families. Only
one other part of town projects increased pollution - folks along the new
Bragaw Extension though Far North Bicentennial Park. In Anchorage we've
shown increased pollution equals increased asthma in our children.
2. The Daily News
reported the 2005 cost at $581 million.
In fact: The 2005 estimate closes in on $775 million:
$575 Highway to Highway
$63 Airport Heights Interchange
$50 Tudor to 20th
$33 Bragaw Interchange
$26 Gambell Ingra to Whitney\
$22 McCarrey to Ingra-Gambell
$3 3rd Avenue resurface
Note that these projects
do not include widening planned for the New Seward. - Haven't seen those
costs yet.
At the Chamber of
Commerce's Business and Economic Development meeting on August 6, 2008, the
assumption was that a freeway would be built - somewhere. The Daily News
explained that the state is buying properties along the Hyder right of way.
Wonder which route the state is betting on....
When asked for a
"land use and transit study" where infill and redevelopment
served by transit and sidewalks would take enough trips off the road to
eliminate need for a freeway - staff explained they researched that a few
years ago and it wouldn't relieve congestion. Hmmm. Then how come it works
in other cities? Portland is now working for 60 percent of its downtown
commute to come by transit, compared with 40 percent today. Anchorage's
highway study estimated transit all the way up to 2 percent.
Could it be "When
all you have in your hand is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?"
For the cost of this freeway, we could have streetcar
lines or more city buses
By Walt Parker and John Weddleton
Published as a Compass article in the Anchorage Daily News August 18, 2007
A lot of people
think the Fairview Freeway is a great deal. No more red lights! A quicker
commute!
But where will the
construction money come from? What about the air pollution that we know
causes asthma for children living nearby, and what happens when energy
costs climb? Do we care about the economic drain on Anchorage in general,
and downtown in particular? How quickly will we zip around town after
traffic doubles? And finally, how we will pay to maintain what we've
already built?
This
freeway is outrageously expensive at $150 million a mile, and would consume
40 percent of Anchorage's expected transportation revenues for the next 20
years. For its $725 million price tag Anchorage could build 60 miles of
streetcars - 8 routes connecting the city along major corridors. Imagine
solving congestion by getting cars off the road! If we put that money in
the bank, Anchorage could operate 35 more bus routes on the interest alone
in addition to the 19 we have today. When we have a bus system that meets
our needs, we won't have to drive everywhere.
In
Alaska we waste scarce federal funds on earmarks and use state general
funds to build roads, instead of improving education, health care, clean
air and water. We condemn ourselves to more traffic when our only solution
for congestion is building more roads. And busy freeways are notorious
polluters. They emit heavy metals, carcinogens and dust that send children
to the hospital and the traffic noise ruins neighborhoods.
The
freeway will drain downtown development. It does not help anyone get into
downtown but speeds us to the new malls on the Glenn at Bragaw and Muldoon.
Instead of honoring the Comprehensive Plan, this freeway promotes sprawl
and encourages young families to move to the valley.
The
Fairview Freeway is premised on doubling Anchorage's traffic. Maybe a new
freeway can handle twice as many cars as Gambell-Ingra, but can the feeder
streets? Do you remember when they said Tudor Road would eliminate
congestion and provide a travelers' bypass? How does it feel to drive Tudor
now?
If
our only solution to transportation is to build more roads, we condemn
ourselves to that doubling of traffic. The workable solution is to provide
families with alternatives to driving.
Finally,
there's the looming maintenance problem. We build highways without a
maintenance plan. The state of Alaska says road and bridge maintenance
already falls short by $10 million a year. Who will pay to maintain this
freeway that serves mostly Mat-Su commuters?
Continued
road building won't solve our transportation problems. It hasn't worked in
other cities, and it won't work here. It's time to demand a modern,
balanced, working transportation system that will serve our children and
their children.
Walt Parker is a longtime Anchorage civic activist and transportation
consultant.
John Weddleton is past president of the Anchorage Citizens Coalition.
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Public Meetings &
Hearings
The
project's official website is www.highway2highway.com
ACC Board
members Susanne DiPietro and Michael Howard are members of the Citizens and
Highway Users Advisory Committee.
H2H- Documents for Review
A background information
packet from the project consultant team is posted here.
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