Anchorage Daily News
(Published: December 20, 2003)
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The first look at a controversial new road that would extend Bragaw Road south and open a commuting route from the lower Hillside was given to city and state officials on Friday, showing a raised parkway with long bridges over the Campbell Creek salmon streams.
The project would create a new mile-long, four-lane divided roadway from Tudor Road across a strip of undeveloped land between two city parks, Stewart Osgood, project manager for DOWL Engineers, told the AMATS transportation committee. Several versions of the project would also upgrade Abbott Loop Road with a middle turn lane, sidewalks and new traffic lights.
But a major consideration will be the length of the bridges and whether to consider an expensive route down the existing power line, Osgood told the officials.
The bridges are needed to protect fish habitat and allow moose and other wildlife to roam the creek bottom without wandering into traffic. The bridges must be at least 10 feet above the ground. Depending on the exact alignment, and recommendations by biologists, these bridges might extend 750 feet to more than 1,300 feet.
The longest span would be required if the route remains on the existing corridor, an option that also means moving utilities. Other routes would move slightly west on higher ground but would also require up to 1,000 feet of bridges.
"It's about 20 grand per foot," Osgood said about bridges as he showed slides to the committee. "It adds up pretty fast -- that's $2 million per hundred feet."
Such costs could boost the project beyond the $37.5 million in funding approved by state voters, Osgood said. Rough estimates now range from $35 million to more than $50 million but will be refined by geotechnical studies of the ground in late winter.
DOWL will distribute a draft reconnaissance report describing these possible routes, plus right-of-way issues and other engineering problems, within a week or two. A public meeting will follow on Jan. 5 at Service High School.
The Bragaw project was among several local transportation matters -- and one confrontation with state Sen. Ben Stevens -- crammed into a two-hour session attended by about 40 citizens, bureaucrats and engineers at City Hall during Friday's snow storm.
The five-member committee -- Mayor Mark Begich, Assembly Chairman Dick Traini, Assemblyman Doug Van Etten, Mike Scott of the state Department of Transportation and Tom Chapple from the state Department of Environmental Conservation -- sets local transportation policy and ranks road construction projects.
One action Friday was largely ceremonial. The city took formal control of a project that would extend the Coastal Trail from its terminus at Kincaid Park along Turnagain Arm to Potter Marsh.
An agreement of understanding signed by Begich and Scott will allow the city to finish a study of trail routes, costs and environmental impacts. Begich said the agreement will give the local community the authority to reduce costs and find acceptable routes.
The committee also changed timing and funding of transportation projects for Anchorage between 2004 and 2006. Due to about $20 million in reduced federal highway funding for the state, it delayed several projects and adjusted funding for others.
The group unanimously approved the revised plan, which also included enhancements for trails and pedestrians that amounted to about 17 percent of federal transportation funds for the period, according to an AMATS summary of the plan.
That move appeared to anger Stevens, who sponsored a bill last session that ordered municipalities to spend no more than 10 percent of their funds on enhancements beginning in 2005. The south Anchorage Republican stood and confronted the group, saying he was disappointed that it had ignored the message in the bill.
Begich responded that the committee was designed to allow local people to set transportation priorities. "Let's not dilly-dally," he said. "Is the message here that you want to change the process so that the Legislature can get into local decision making?"
"I don't want to do it -- we did it with Senate Bill 71," Stevens replied.
Stevens said he was concerned that trail and landscaping in existing projects amounted to 10 percent already, and he wanted to know how much was actually spent. Officials immediately said they would get him those figures.
"This is about accountability," Stevens said later.
But Begich said that the issue was also about local control over transportation projects. "We take lots of legislators' advice," he said. "But he wasn't asking, he was telling."
Daily News reporter Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@adn.com.