Alaska News

State-city panel approves delaying Knik Arm bridge

A joint state-city committee that makes decisions on major transportation and highway projects in Anchorage voted unanimously Thursday to push the proposed Knik Arm bridge back until at least 2018.

The Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions Policy Committee adopted a compromise recommended by a technical committee of planners and engineers, and opted against an earlier proposal to delete the bridge from Anchorage's long-range transportation plan entirely. That move would have killed it.

The compromise -- worked out by the technical committee and Assemblyman Patrick Flynn, who also serves on the policy committee -- allows the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority to continue efforts to plan for and design the bridge, and to try to find ways to finance the project, most recently estimated at about $680 million.

But the bridge has been moved from the short-term part of the transportation plan to long-term, meaning construction couldn't begin until 2018 -- unless the plan is changed again as the committee works on another update due to be finished in 2011.

The compromise also says plans for the bridge between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie in Mat-Su should include a railroad link as well as pedestrian and bicycle facilities. Among other conditions: No construction can begin until the project has been completely financed, and the toll authority, known as KABATA, will have to build and pay for a connection from the bridge to the Ingra-Gambell corridor to divert traffic from downtown.

The compromise has the backing of the Anchorage Assembly, which voted to endorse it after a contentious five-hour public hearing Wednesday night. The Assembly also ruled that Flynn, who works as an assistant vice president with the Alaska Railroad, does not have a conflict that should prevent him from voting on the project.

The other members of the policy committee are Gordon Keith, Southcentral region director for the state Transportation Department, Alice Edwards, with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Assemblywoman Sheila Selkregg and acting Mayor Matt Claman. Claman will be replaced on the panel when Mayor-elect Dan Sullivan is sworn in July 1.

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KABATA executives and several others at Thursday's meeting strongly opposed both the compromise and the original proposal to kill the bridge plan outright. They said the compromise is so new -- it arrived only last week -- and different from the proposal to kill the project that it should have gone out for another 30 days of public notice.

"You can't publish a document on one day and hear it the next," said Randy McCain, who testified before the Assembly Wednesday and showed up Thursday to talk to the AMATS committee.

Selkregg originally wanted to delete the project altogether.

But after listening to hours of public comment, she said Thursday, "it's clear that this community has conflicting perspectives on this project and it would be the best action at this time to defer it and have critical issues ... addressed before we proceed. Moving it into the long-term project list is an appropriate action based on the information we've received."

Claman said big questions remain about how the expensive bridge could be financed.

The compromise, he said after the vote, "allows us to continue to discuss the merits of the bridge and look at the real economic costs ... to see whether it makes sense both for Anchorage and Alaska. It also recognizes that there's no private backing for the bridge today, so we really need to go very slowly if we're actually going to build it at all."

Keith, the state DOT official who backs the bridge, described the bridge delay as a solution "where there isn't one big winner and one big loser."

Mike Foster, who chairs KABATA's board of directors, told the policy committee voting on the compromise so soon after it surfaced violates both federal highway standards and the committee's own public participation rules.

After the meeting, he acknowledged that at least the committee's vote allows the toll authority to continue working to find ways to build the crossing.

"It's a compromise we oppose, but I certainly understand the politics behind it ... the efforts to build a consensus," Foster said. "We'll live another day to battle another time."

The project's week isn't over yet. The cities of Wasilla and Houston, saying they hadn't had a chance to comment on the new plan, filed suit late Tuesday afternoon to block any changes in the project's status. A hearing on a temporary restraining order sought by the Mat-Su communities is set for a court hearing this afternoon.

Contact reporter Don Hunter at dhunter@adn.com or 257-4349.

By DON HUNTER

dhunter@adn.com

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