The future of Don Young's Way

The Knik Arm Crossing, the bridge the federal government officially named “Don Young’s Way” took another political punch Monday when the Anchorage Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to remove the bridge from the Anchorage Bowl Long-Range Transportation Plan, a plan meant to guide transportation spending—mostly federal government money—until 2025.

This is another in a long string of decisions by various panels likely to be overturned after July. That doesn’t mean popular opinions about the bridge are going to change in July, it only means the political zeitgeist is in a state of flux. July is the month when Mayor-elect Dan Sullivan takes office and gets to join Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions. AMATS is the five-member panel that keeps busy amending, then re-amending, the long-range plan. A Sullivan vote is expected to swing the panel in favor of the bridge.

The planning and zoning vote was an advisory to AMATS, but the transportation panel also awaits an advisory vote from the Anchorage Assembly. That panel is so busy listening to various opinions about how to interpret the Golden Rule in municipal code, they’re not likely to discuss Don Young’s Way any time soon.

During the bridge plan’s detour to planning and zoning, Don Young’s Way got another round of public comments. Those are released late last month in a 99-page document that gives a window into how Alaskans think about the bridge. The city received 760 comments, but they came from only 152 “respondents” which is the planners’ collective name for people, agencies and organizations filing opinions. 

The planners counted 92 respondents in favor of keeping the bridge in the plan and 55 in favor of removing it. (Six respondents commented on other parts of the plan.) City staff in the transportation department compiled the comments and wrote staff responses. They didn’t respond to each individual comment, instead organizing the comments by the issues raised and responding to each group of comments.

The bridge will provide a third route out of Anchorage, a second for travelers headed to the Susitna Valley. It would provide a longer route to Wasilla than the Glenn Highway, but that doesn’t stop Alaskans from claiming it will relieve traffic on the Glenn. The staff response says traffic models predict the bridge won’t have a “significant effect” on Glenn Highway traffic.

One comment warns Anchorage will become “more isolated than Juneau, landlocked by the 30 mile traffic jam on our one road” if we don’t build something. If a disaster strikes, others warned, the Glenn Highway could be closed. In reply, the staff comment acknowledges the bridge would provide an alternate route out of Anchorage, but noted it would be vulnerable to earthquakes. Staff writes that current plans include studying a coastal route—roughly parallel to the Glenn—from Port of Anchorage to the Knik River, where travelers could be detoured during an emergency.

Here’s the most colorful comment published: “For those who argue against the bridge in favor of urban density and public transportation, I suggest you spend a few weeks riding the bus in Anchorage in the winter. You won’t have problems finding a seat, but be sure to dress warmly and bring something to read (and a flashlight) (and pepper spray). Anchorage is not like other cities, and Anchoragites are a different breed.”

The names of the people who wrote comments are not included in the document, so the one above remains anonymous. In reply, staff point out the bridge is expensive and that Anchorage’s comprehensive plan (called Anchorage 2020) sets a goal to “Optimize existing transportation and utility infrastructure before extending these facilities to undeveloped areas.”

That’s what much of the debate boils down to. Should Anchorage plan on increasing population density or should it encourage development in a sparsely populated corner of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough?

scott@anchoragepress.com