A state judge has temporarily blocked a decision to delay the Knik Arm bridge project until at least 2018.

Judge Sen Tan issued the preliminary injunction at a hearing this morning. It will remain in effect until another court hearing on Aug. 18.

Attorneys representing the joint state-city transportation committee that voted last month to delay the project said there was no need for an injunction because nothing would have happened in the next month anyway. The decision can't be implemented until an air quality study is updated, they said.

Tan's order makes sure nothing gets implemented.

The order comes in a lawsuit filed by the cities of Houston and Wasilla against the AMATS Policy Committee, a joint state-city committee that decided June 25 to move the bridge project to a longer term part of Anchorage's transportation plan. That was a compromise from an earlier proposal to eliminate the bridge from the transportation plan entirely.

The mayors of the two Mat-Su communities want the bridge to be built and want the project to stay where it was in the transportation plan's timeline.

They argue that the compromise, which also added a heavy rail line and pedestrian and bicycle facilities to the bridge, was a major change that should have set off another round of public hearings and review.

The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, the state agency created to push the project, has joined the suit on the side of the cities.

SHIFTING LINEUP

The already complicated case is getting even more tangled. The AMATS decision was made a few days before Mayor Dan Sullivan was sworn into office July 1.

Sullivan, who is part of the five-member AMATS committee, supports the bridge. He has a different position than former acting Mayor Matt Claman and Assembly members Sheila Selkregg and Patrick Flynn, who voted to delay the project.

Assistant Municipal Attorney Robert Owens, who represents the city members on the AMATS committee, said the new mayor doesn't object to giving additional public notice and allowing more comment on the question of whether the project should be pushed back.

The Assembly members on the committee do object to that idea, and want the decision to stand as it is.

Owens said he can't represent two conflicting positions. So the city will be hiring a private attorney to represent Claman, Selkregg and Flynn before the next hearing date, he said.

State attorneys are representing people on both sides. One assistant attorney general, Jeff Stark, is representing the state members of the AMATS committee, and another, James Cantor, is representing the toll authority.

Owens stepped on some toes in the course of arguing his side when he referred to Houston and Wasilla as "two far-flung communities" wanting to interfere in Anchorage's transportation plan.

"We're the other side of this bridge, where 76 percent of it will be built," said Richard Payne, the lawyer representing the Mat-Su towns. "That's somewhat insulting."

After the hearing, Houston Mayor Roger Purcell and Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright said the Knik Arm crossing proposal is important to their cities.

From the Anchorage end, the project may look like a bridge to nowhere, they said. From their side, it looks like a bridge to the state's largest city.

Find Don Hunter online at adn.com/contact/dhunter.

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