City consultant to help with traffic-calming program

He made the announcement Wednesday as part of Mayor Dan Sullivan's weekly press briefing.

The money includes state grants of $350,000 for East Anchorage traffic calming and $120,000 for the Abbott Loop area, both appropriated by the Legislature this year. The balance is funds left over from earlier years.

Two East Anchorage legislators who sponsored the $350,000 state grant have been pushing the mayor to come up with a plan to spend the money, after they learned that the city had discontinued its program of building speed humps on neighborhood streets that force drivers to slow down.

The speed humps and other new stand-alone traffic calming projects this year fell victim to a budget cut. The city eliminated the position of the full-time person in the traffic department who managed speed hump projects like building crosswalks with more visible, red-tinted concrete, or raising intersections slightly to give drivers pause. That cut was effective in January.

The city traffic department has since been telling people who call to request speed humps that the program is discontinued.

Traffic-calming projects already in progress are continuing, as are projects that are part of larger road jobs, Jones said.

The mayor and Sen. Bill Wielechowski and Rep. Pete Petersen have been wrangling in letters to the editor and press releases in recent weeks over whether and how the city would spend the money.

Sullivan referred to that dispute when at Wednesday's press briefing he said he "takes umbrage" at statements the two legislators have made saying the city had rejected the money.

The city will accept the two 2010 state grants for traffic calming, Sullivan said. The grants are before the Anchorage Assembly awaiting their approval. Sullivan said he can guarantee the Assembly will support taking the money.

The balance of city funds that could be used for traffic calming -- more than $662,000 -- is money that had been designated for 10 other projects prior to 2010 but was left over, Jones said.

A consultant will look into existing but aging traffic calming studies for various neighborhoods, talk to legislators and community members and devise a plan to get going on some projects, Jones said. That may take until the end of this year, he said.

The consultant will likely cost less than $50,000, he said, and the money will be taken out of the grants and bond funds.

Meantime, the city departments involved in traffic calming, such as the traffic department, are being reorganized, Jones said. In the end there should be people available to manage traffic calming, he said.

The $350,000 grant for East Anchorage specifically said improvements should include lighting, chokers, sidewalks and speed humps.

The wide asphalt humps are a popular answer to the problem of cars and trucks speeding on neighborhood streets. There are some 202 speed humps already installed in neighborhoods around the city.

The Mountain View, Northeast and Russian Jack Community Council areas are to be involved in identifying where the money should be spent, under terms of the grant.

The Northeast council passed a resolution a few weeks ago asking for speed humps on DeBarr Road near Valley Street, east of Muldoon Road, where a 6-year-old girl riding her bicycle was hit by an SUV in May.

Even with elimination of the traffic calming position, city officials all along have said they would find a way to spend the state grant money. They just didn't have specifics, except saying the notion that flashing signs that show a driver's speed vs. the speed limit would be a good idea.

The legislators who've been pressing the issue, Wielechowski and Petersen, both said after the mayor's briefing that they're glad the traffic calming program is moving forward.

"I'm hoping they'll be able to get this study done sooner," said Petersen, "so maybe we can still get some speed humps up this year."

Find Rosemary Shinohara online at adn.com/contact/rshinohara or call her at 257-4340.