Anchorage Daily News
(Published: October 7, 2003)
The city made a last-minute effort to get money to complete environmental studies of the proposed Anchorage Coastal Trail extension this year but was stymied by the state and the calendar.
The plan, put forward by Mayor Mark Begich, was to split the city's remaining 2003 federal highway funds -- nearly $2 million -- among two roads and some trails. Three hundred thousand dollars would have gone to wrap up the environmental impact statement for the proposed 13-mile extension of the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail from Kincaid Park to Potter Marsh.
Begich said he'd raise private funds to match the federal contribution.
The draft environmental study for the trail extension was released late last year. But the project has been without funding since the public comment period ended in May. Trail planners still need to analyze comments, including critiques from several government agencies, make any necessary route and cost revisions, and publish a final impact statement.
The existing Coastal Trail runs 11 miles from downtown to Kincaid.
Begich's proposal for completing the work was approved 4-1 on Sept. 18 by the AMATS Policy Committee, which decides how to spend federal road and trail money in Anchorage.
But it was thwarted in the weeks after the meeting.
Mike Scott, regional director of the state Department of Transportation, argued in a letter later that it's against federal rules to partially fund a project. He said in an interview that it had become clear after the AMATS meeting that Begich didn't have any private funding in hand.
Near the end of September, the Federal Highway Administration rejected the Coastal Trail funding on grounds that all the money needed had to be available. Any possibility of changing the agency's decision died last Tuesday, when the federal fiscal year ended.
While Begich wanted some trail money, the state had proposed scooping up Anchorage's entire 2003 federal highway fund balance -- including money targeted for roads, air quality projects and trails -- to increase design spending for three road projects, on Huffman and DeArmoun roads and the Old Seward Highway.
The design costs to rebuild Huffman Road between the Old Seward Highway and Lake Otis Parkway had risen dramatically, from the $500,000 already set aside and spent, to $1.25 million.
Begich said he wanted to know why design costs increased 150 percent. And since the project is low on the AMATS priority list, an anticipated decline in federal highway dollars makes it unclear when the road would be built, Begich said.
He wanted to delay the Huffman design and use the money to repair some existing trails and finish the Coastal Trail studies.
This all came to a head at the Sept. 18 meeting of the AMATS committee.
According to a tape of the meeting, the committee was halfway through discussing whether to put some money into the Coastal Trail study when a state official made a surprise announcement: The state had already sent its own proposal in to the Federal Highway Administration, without waiting for the city to say what it wanted or for an AMATS vote.
The Highway Administration was already closing out its fiscal year and wouldn't accept any more changes, said state transportation planning chief John Tolley.
"We knew that was the case," Tolley told AMATS members during the meeting. State officials had hoped to get AMATS to vote on the reallocation at an earlier meeting, he said.
When that didn't happen, he said, the state sent in its own plan "just trying to make sure we had the money nailed down for Anchorage and didn't lose it."
The AMATS committee consists of two state officials, including Scott, Begich, and Anchorage Assemblymen Dick Traini and Doug Van Etten. The committee decided to approve the mayor's plan anyway and see whether the highway administration would accept a late change.
As it turned out, it might not have mattered.
Karen Schmidt, assistant Alaska administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said AMATS couldn't move the money to the Coastal Trail unless it was for the entire amount needed to complete the environmental studies.
About $3.5 million has already been spent over several years. The state has estimated the completion cost at $725,000.
Begich believes it can be done for less and doesn't think the federal government's no-partial-funding rule should apply in this case.
"They partially funded it all the way to this point."
Some private groups with an interest in helping to finish the trail planning have contacted his administration, Begich said.
"I'm taken aback by the state's action in all these issues," Begich said. "They should never have sent the report to the federal government without going to the policy committee."
Since the federal government turned down the plan to spend some of the remaining 2003 highway money on trails, the funds will go to the three road projects, as proposed by the state.
Daily News reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.