December 04, 2025 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Welcome to the AMATS Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Public comments are welcome and encouraged with three minutes given to each speaker. After the committee discusses each item, members of the public will be invited to comment. Housekeeping items For virtual attendees, please keep your cameras off unless speaking. For those attending by phone, press star six to mute or unmute yourself. Thank you.
Okay, perfect. Thanks Aaron. I'm noticing on, because we're in a different room today 'cause our other typical room is getting some AV updates. I noticed that I can see the back of my head online. So yes, I am balding for everyone. Should we move over there so that we, this room right here is next. Oh sure. Yeah, let's move over to there. Remember, why didn't, I can migrate a little bit. I don't know. The back of my head is a better view than the, okay. There we go. Now I won't be quite the self-conscious as it see the back of my head every time looking at my screen. So next we'll jump in our agenda to the, the agenda itself.
Do we have a motion for approving the agenda? Move to approve. Second. Second. Okay. Moved by member Babb, seconded by member White. Are there any changes that are needed to the agenda? Hearing no changes, are there any objections to approving the agenda? Okay, hearing none, the agenda is approved. Next, do we have a motion for approving the November 6th, 2025 meeting minutes? I move to approve. Second. Moved by member Kohlhaas. Seconded by member Jager. Jager. Are there any changes needed to the minutes? Okay, are there any objections to approving the minutes? Hearing none. The November 6th, 2025 minutes are approved. I'll move onto our action items on our agenda. First action item five A is the 2050 MTP Amendment Two. Okay, take it away.
Hello. So before you you have 2050 MTP Amendment Number Two. Staff requests that the technical advisory committee review the changes and then recommend to the policy committee to have them released for a 45 day public comment period. Within this MTP or within this update, there are three changes. The first is an update to the tip NHS number one project Seward Highway, O'Malley Road to Dimond. This is based on a change that the PC made in October to the TIP description. So we are now matching the MTP description to the TIP description for 2027 to 2030 TIP. So that's item number one. To go along with that amendment. We did update the project cost table 13. We do show that we are still considerably fiscally restrained or constrained after adding that 22 to 24 million to the cost and revenue. And then the additional changes for this amendment are to add two projects that the MOA is seeking grant funding for rural and tribal assistant pilot program grant.
These are considered CAT X projects, so we do have to put them into the MTP. We figured amending it now to get those in. So if when they get the funding they can, they can start up the ground running instead of waiting for that amendment. And so those projects were added to the project table. They were also scored to keep consistent with the rest of the projects. Although the scoring obviously wouldn't have, it wouldn't have bubbled up to the top with the rest of 'em but because the MOA is seeking funding, they do need to be in the MTP. So we are adding them in there and they are at the end of the complete streets list. And then the other amendment was just again updating that, the description in the table. So I can answer any questions if you'd like.
I'll just add a little bit of comment to say I appreciate all of am a's help and support to get these two life safety access road projects included in the amendment. This was a effort as a result of our long range planning group convening various stakeholder departments across MOA, including fire departments and Office of Emergency Management, where we've looked at all the various roadway needs for life safety access improvements. And these two projects, including Mountain Air Drive, were some of the highest identified in the prior in the prioritized list. And we are actively working on grants and we have applications in, so we are just waiting to hear back. So thank you for the support.
Any other questions or comments from the committee? Any numbers online? I'm signed in so I'm trying to manage that too. But feel free to speak up if anybody online, any committee members online wanna say something or ask a question. Being know though, know more from the committee. I I then we will go ahead
Scored them just to keep consistent because all the rest of them, but because they're seeking money and it seems like it's gonna happen, they need to go in anyway. So they went to the very bottom of the table just to kind of indicate that they don't flush out the same as the rest of them. Okay, great. Thank you very much. And we did, sorry, we did include the federal performance areas for what was really impactful for these. So not necessarily the scoring, but where, what would've scored for these. So the safety, the infrastructure for both of them. R sorry for the record. Rhianna Brown with Ameds.
Okay, thanks. Okay, let's go to public comments. Are there any comments from the public? If you're online, you'd like to comment, raise your hand. I'll call on you. I don't see anybody so far and no one in the room it looks like. Okay. Then we will move to what is the will of the committee.
And Anson, you could potentially speak more, but I would like to add a point that we did look at the same plans to a certain degree. We always look at the other plans in the, the city and whatnot, but we've not always seen everything. So yeah, we did look for opportunities to mention.
And on that note, I just wanted to say thank you for giving the planning department a chance to review this plan. There is a lot in here of interest to us. Okay. Just due to the, you know, the discussion about 10,000 homes in 10 years, infield project, new development. So I think we do have a meeting set up individually with Aou or we were in the process of setting that up and I think I'd like to go ahead and have that meeting that I also would love to be involved in the larger meeting with development services and PE Yeah. Because this is all very, very directly related to our comprehensive plan and the, the implementation assessment. So thank you again. Okay,
So my only question is, are we only dealing with half of eight O here? There's the wastewater side, which, so we're, we're talking about half your water, which presumably is half your pipes. Should both sides be considered at the same time? So my right side of the brain is the water left side waste water. I represent both, we are just not actively working on the wastewater management wastewater master plan right now. Okay. Well wastewater master plan in contract. Yeah. HDR, the wastewater master plan is starting as so about a month ago. Okay. I, I guess my, my only real point was if, if you're in for a dime, you might as well be in for a dollar. Let's, let's yeah, get it all on the table. So we, to your question, don't have updated master planning maps, but we have a master plan that's, you know, what is it?
2014 I think was the last one for the wastewater side. So some of those projects have been done and some are out of date and we'll be updating those as well. But we also have the capital improvement program that the utility holds with a 60 year outlook of projects. And to what Melinda was saying, it's always a great opportunity for the groups. I think that's a really good idea. And the states come together and look at those six year projects to really focus on any that might be overlapping. I would think that would be a good meeting. And it's for water and wastewater.
Hi, good afternoon. Anna Boen, DOT, regional Traffic and Safety Engineer. I put a comment in the chat. There are two pavement preservation projects listed within that timeframe. But also my more important comment is regarding traffic control and ensuring that the contract documents when they're put out to bid, incorporate the new M-U-T-C-D requirements. There's a, it's gonna be in effect mid-January, there's no grace period for that. And then pro A as well, which is the public right of way, accessibility guide. Anytime there's paving involved, access ramps must be replaced and so ensuring that those are incorporated into the project documents is really important. Thanks.
Just a reminder of the long queues where we have poor lane utilization here, there are two lanes in the westbound direction, but people knowing they have to turn left to get onto the glen highway as headed westbound, they all stack in a single lane and it goes back sometimes in the morning, regularly in the morning, over a mile up to two, close to two miles. And so that's the issue we're trying to solve primarily. Next slide please. So some constraints we're working with on a project we want to, the bridge still has a lot of good life left in it. It has a 75 year design life right now, or it was designed with 75 year design life, but there's a couple decades left we assume in that design life. So we wanna keep that existing bridge. So whatever designs we have need to accommodate the existing bridge cross section. So that's a fixed width and elevations of course. And then we also want our design to accommodate a future bridge replacement project easily without having to tear up a bunch of the work. Additionally, we have non-motorized and transit facilities nearby and we wanna maintain those or enhance those. And we also want to make sure we address the traffic operational issues during that morning peak, as I mentioned before, but also over height vehicle needs, you know, if they can't go into the Glen highway 'cause they're over height, we need to make sure to accommodate them up top at the interchange and definitely address the solid waste services needs for their access vehicles. Next slide please. And I'm gonna hand it over to Kelly, talk about
The preferred. Thank so much Galen. All right. I think some folks did see this presentation last time where we did have some of our other alternatives, but our preferred alternative was the diverge about, and so it's the diverging diamond with roundabouts, this intersection and the volumes didn't quite warrant signals. So we're looking at roundabouts. We did take an incremental approach to get to this alternative. We really wanted to see, you know, that main, that main movement, the, the westbound, the southbound left, lots of vehicles going through there two miles, as Galen said, sometimes even back to Walmart, we're hearing from the public. So really this interchange is for that one movement and then increasing that movement onto the highway, we wanna make sure the highway can take that merge capacity. So we looked at things, how do we get them through faster, right? Because we don't want that long queue.
Those alternatives still created problems with all the roadways ramps intersecting into the interchange. So it wasn't, it wasn't allowing folks into the interchange. So that's why we went with the diverge about. So this comprehensively improves the performance throughout the interchange. It provides refuges for pedestrians. It doesn't require high cost utility impacts. We're avoiding a water line, we're avoiding that 20 inch gas line that seems to hit every project in Anchorage in the valley. Not this one. There's an overhead transmission line we're not hitting. We are purposely potentially relocating some dry utilities and we'll go over that here in a little bit. There's reduced right of way donations. So we have that as a negative. Negative is such a strong word, but we've worked through it. I it's gonna be a donation and there is a slight impact, but we're working with solid waste services on that right of way or donation and it's, it's a positive thing. So that's good. It's gonna be Alaska's first diverge about, we have Glen Muldoon. I think most people were like ah first. But I think they've really embraced it and we're hearing good things and at our open house we were getting great feedback from the public, we had great animations and really, really got good feedback. People left those meetings saying thanks for the animations. 'cause it really showed how they can get through and I think people are pretty excited about it.
I just wanna point out too that you know, when you look at a map of this, you're like, oh my gosh, this is really complicated. But when you're, it's because you're looking at the entire thing all at the same time. When you're in a vehicle, you're just looking at one little spot. Member Jager.
Yeah, I just wanna clarify, we don't select applicants based on when their application came in. We selected based on the actual application and resume they submit. However, there was only one selected at the time that we were getting ready to post the agenda. So we had selected Sam and then another one came in. So I just wanna make sure that that is very clear. We didn't select Sam just because his application came in first.
There's, there's no guarantee that we can put them into each position. Right. That the organization will agree that they can go in that position. So you still wanna select the top candidate for the public one they apply to and then attempt the other, in my opinion.
Or sorry Member Babb for the record, my assumption would be that we can make recommendations to the policy committee about potentially all three positions and that the, the organizational question should be settled by the time it makes, makes it that far. And I did also have one question, I think you might have said this already, but how long has it been since we got had a full, full committee? We have not had a full committee since before this year. And prior to that all the subcommittees were on hiatus for a while due to AAP staffing shortages. And so it's been, I don't know exactly, but it hasn't met as a board committee for a couple of years.
Hi everyone, I'm Lindsay Hajduk I serve as the chair of the bpac and appreciate the conversation. When we had our meeting on Monday night, we were able to see these two applicants since they're part of your agenda and we thought both candidates were qualified and didn't have a preference between the two. And that's why we looked at which seats are available, understanding that my position and another members, we could slide into the community or environmental seat. We're, we're like, both of our organizations support that. And so it really is just, you know, choosing one of us to make that happen. So if, if you all recommend one of our current public members sliding into the community environmental seat, we can confirm those details for the policy committee to review. And the bpac would recommend that you recommend both of these applicants to move forward for the bpac because we think they are both eligible.
So this is what we're looking at right now. That bottom section isn't completely set. We're trying to hold lane widths at 11 feet. We're playing with shoulder widths with that pedestrian walkway width. Working with again m and o. How do they, how they plow that center median with the barriers there? How do they plow where they store? Luckily it's a fairly short bridge. It's on a crest. So we do have water going off each side, but there are things that we have to think about. So we're still working through this on the, the reason why we're working with the utilities, the existing pathway right now has several conduits in it that have dry utilities, communication, utilities. And so bridge is favorable saying that we can take out that the utility door, whatever that's in the sidewalk and we can relocate it. There's several ideas that we're thinking about either put it under the bridge, which I think is preferred, we can route it into some of those new barriers.
We can put different conduits. So we're working through that right now and then we're gonna present that with the utilities and see how they feel about us relocating their utilities. But that'll help us. And the one thing also is that Senate, we want to, by adding these barriers, we're adding weight to the bridge. So we're probably not gonna raise the pedestrian path. It'll probably be just a whole paved deck basically for the bridge. Pedestrians will be at the same height but we're still gonna have those bears that just helps reduce weight. Did I miss anything?
Well I just wanted to go back to member Jager's question, which we, which we appreciate is, you know the, currently the routing follows the north side of the bridge and then it crosses the southbound off ramp and then it crosses the solid way service entrance and then it ties into the glen highway pathway. So we acknowledge it's a really important connection. What's nice about the diverge about design is that it keeps that heavy heavy traffic movement from the westbound to southbound. The proposed routing never has to cross that heavy movement either. So it's still generally following the same. And then just to reiterate what Kelly was saying, currently there are seven lanes that have to be crossed by pedestrians. None of those have refuges in the middle. This actually reduces the lanes being crossed from from seven existing to six, that eight number for the previous alternative. But now you have pedestrian refuges between those crossings so you they only have to cross one direction at a time. They get to look focus on one direction of vehicles at a time. So from that standpoint it is an improved
Back Kelly back to me. So meeting with transit, we've working through each of the stakeholders here. So we have met with transit several times. They have a master plan that may be looking at changing some routings in the future. So there's some pretty decent discussions around that. So they have shared with us where they want currently they would like one stop and where they want it is kind of where we see a little orange or white dot there, the bus stop. So we're working on that, that quadrant, which is the northeast quadrant and how we incorporate the circulation of buses going into there in relation to the park and ride. So that's something that we're working in, working through some of the challenges or just how they circulate. There's a little bit of, it drops off to the north, so some top topography, how many spaces we put in there.
And of course they've asked for some amenities so they are looking to have a shelter bench, trash cans, some pedestrian scale lighting. So all things we're gonna work through and see where we are when we report. It looks like we may be having the routing go through the roundabout and as it gets onto the ramp it'll actually have a slip lane into the bus stop is kind of how we're seeing. And that's just based on conditions of VFW. There's challenges sometimes that VFW isn't cleared in the winter so we need to make sure they could continue to get back to the interchange whether they're going north or south. So that's something we're working through
About 20 million, 22.5 million, sorry, of funding for this project. So the request is in to see if we can use that funding. I will let you know if that request is not approved and we aren't able to use the funding or only a portion of the funding becomes available, then staff's recommendation is to use AM a s funding to finish that project and get it moving forward. So we will, we'll keep an eye on that and let you know what happens on that. And then there are two new projects added in here based on working with transit department, the Transit Technology monetization project, and the Anchorage Ride Fare collection upgrade project.
Okay, next we have the table six. We've talked about these updates. This is just the IL Street and then the Minnesota Drive project table seven. There's some updates here for HSIP. The biggest one is, or the two big ones that I wanna note, the Anchorage flashing yellow arrow. The utilities construction is moving to beyond FY 26. And so we'll we capture that as part of the 27 through 30 tip. And then I will need to make a correction here or an update to what it says for the HSP 0 0 2 1 Old Seward Highway industry way hundred 20th Avenue. That project is not being removed as requested by DOT. What happened is the funding is moving from FY 26 to FY 27 and because there's no funding left in the tip, that automatically removes the project. So what I need to do is update that description and let people know that that funding is moved to 27. That project has not stopped. It is still moving forward. So I apologize for any confusion there.
Next table is table eight. There's a bunch of minor changes here for the NHS project. Some projects removed based on the request from DOTI believe these are the stage ones of projects that are already underway. They've been completed or they're being folded into the primary portion of the project so they're no longer needed. And then some general updates. One of the big ones here is the Seward Highway Project, adding 5 million in for FY 26 for design funding and then adjusting the overall total project cost. And then lastly, let's see, we've got the table 10. There's a few things happening here. The University Lake Extension project is moving the funding from FY 26 or 25 to 26. And then we have a couple of new projects. We have the Rabbit Creek at a hundred and 40th Avenue drainage improvements. This is one of the ones that the Muni is seeking a grant for.
And then we have the two new projects that Rhiannon talked about, the at Life and Safety Access Road and the Potter Valley Life and Safety Access Road. Both of those are being added to the tip as well. And one thing I'll note lastly here is the implementation grant for Bagga Street Safety Corridor improvements. We are updating the project description based on some communication with U-S-D-O-T and FHWA about lane reductions not being eligible for this funding source. So staff is bringing this forward to you all. The recommendation is to release this for a 45 day public comment period. Thank you. Thanks Aaron. Are there any questions or comments from the committee, Mr.
Just a, a general question maybe for DOT overall, I'm noticing a lot of funding moving into subsequent years and just wondering how things are going with, with staffing and everything if, if it's a result of staffing shortages or other things going on or if it's a natural brushes of the funding cycle.
I can take first swing at that one. It is probably a combination of things. It's mean really project dependent, but there is a large amount of vacancies and staff changing that have delayed projects. And then currently we have a lot of staff that's been pulled off projects working on the West coast disaster relief as well. So it's kind of a combination of a lot of different things and then projects hitting typical problems that are slowing down the projects as well, permitting issues, that kind of stuff.
Real quick, there was one thing I wanted to mention. Just so everybody is fully aware of it. If you look at the TIP tables themselves, you may notice that we are under programmed. So there is a significant amount of money that we're not anticipating obligating this federal fiscal year. It's probably about 2020 $1 million or more at this point just because of project delays that continue to mount, you know, year after year and they're growing. So, you know, we'll be talking about FY 25 and how much we didn't obligate in that year. And so it's just kind of compounding. I do want to just remind people we don't lose the money, we just have to obligate it in a future year. So you'll probably be seeing some recommendations for staff on what to do with that funding as we move forward with this current and next fiscal year.
Perfect, thanks Aaron. And it looks like there's a request online that we identify speakers, identify themselves as we, as we speak. So I'll try to call on people by name so that you don't have to just say your own name. This is, yeah, Brad. Let's see. So a few other questions that I have. Are there any changes in this that are not aligned with the recent 2027 to 2030 tip conversations that we've had?
Yes, thank you. I would hope that there would be a chance for the public to weigh in on some of the many projects that have been over the years pushed into the outer years. So that at an early kind of interactive stage of the decision making once it's on the draft hip amendment, it seems like it's already locked in. So I would just hope that there would be some ways for the public to be invited into the early discussion process. Thank you.
Thank you Nancy, are there any other comments from the public? Okay, scene none. Moving back to the committee and I guess the thing that I'll say is at this point it's going out to public comment, this isn't final adoption, this is being recommended for release for a 45 day public comment period. So there will be opportunity for this public to, to weigh in what is the will of this item.
Okay, so member White, recommended that that, recommended to the policy committee that that, that we release the 2023 to 2026 TIP amendment number four for a 45 day public comment period. And with the amendments we discussed. So let's list what those were as part of the motion so I can provide some
It strikes me, the real question here is, you know, were there a bunch of other people who just didn't get the, get a bite at the Apple, but if they've had all summer, if they were gonna take a bite, they would've done it. But we've got, in addition to whatever qualifications they have, they've demonstrated, we actually have two interested bodies.
Just reviewing the applications and their resumes, it seems like the not selected candidate is maybe the stronger candidate in my opinion. They already do a lot of public advocacy year round bike rider though they're both regular bike riders. I, I personally don't know that selecting candidate based off of application orders is the best way to do it. But maybe selecting 'em based off of the resumes themselves. Is there an opportunity to recommend one over the other or
Personally, I don't know them. I looked at their resume and think they'll bring a lot of good perspective and, and different perspective and experience to the committee. So I would like to have them participate, especially because we are volunteers and it is difficult to reach quorum. We had five members, you know, it's a majority but it wasn't six. And so another conversation to pick up would be looking at our bylaws and seeing those, those quorum numbers. But we'll have to come back around to the, to this committee and the policy committee for any changes regarding that. But we have members who want to engage, we want to be able to take action and make recommendations your way and think this is a good first step to get there.
Sure. So I would represent NeighborWorks Alaska, which is a community based organization. And Diana Rhodes also participates and could represent the Anchorage Park Foundation as an environmental slash community organization. So both of us, I'm the chair and Diana is the the vice chair. And we both said, oh, either of us could, could move forward with that. So we're just talking, talking with Emily and Erin about who and how to move that forward.
Okay. That, yeah, I guess that does. The question is do we make a suggestion as the tech or do we just let, let our opinion be known that we would like that and let let that work itself out. The policy committee? It probably does need to happen at the policy committee to have specificity, but right here it doesn't necessarily. So. Okay. Are there, are there any public comment? I think that's the point that we were at. Any members of the public who would like to make a comment? Okay, so no hands online or anyone in the room? What is the will of the committee?
Okay. Motion by member Jager. Do we have a second. Okay. Seconded by member Reed for member Bowland. Are there any amendments or conversation discussion on the motion? I we having that conversation? Are there any objections to the motion? Okay, hearing no objection. That motion is approved. So that puts us through all of our action items. Thanks everyone. And a lot more efficient and moving through things this meeting than some of the past ones. So let's move on to the information items 6A, the AWWU Water Master Plan update presentation.
All right. So we just wanted to come before the committee. We've been out in a public comment period for the master plan on online open house and wanted to just go over a high level overview of the plan and so talk about the plan purpose and the schedule and some things today. So the next slide, Julie, is the purpose, the master plan. As a lot of you know the plans, we're looking at how we effectively, efficiently operate our system. That this is specific to the water utility side. We also do a wastewater master plan, but this is how the water utility side and we're looking at a 20 year planning horizon for capital improvements. For the most part, when we look at these plans, this is also operational improvements and level of service maintenance needs for the community.
Go ahead Joe. So our current system, we have about 55,000 customers. That's not people that's connections and two treatment plants, several wells and many, many miles piped and hydrants all over Anchorage from Girdwood to Eluana, there's several other certificated systems within similar service area, but we're the largest one in the state and the city right now we're running about 23 million gallons average per day demand and 50 million gallons peak, which truthfully about a decade or two ago is a little higher for the peaking demand. It's moderated a little bit. So when we're looking at the plans, Anson has helped us a lot with looking at projections, modeling, population projections, what's coming up with different changes in the system, changes in water use, you know, there's a lot of low flow shower heads and things over the last, you know, several decades that have changed consumption, personal consumption, regulatory requirements or some of the heavy hitters there recently have been like PFAS and other things.
But, and with all that in mind, some of the projects, you know, that we have certain amount of focus on that we have examples for where we're going with repair and replacement are in gerd, wood and water reservoir refurbishments. We're looking at every couple years having to do refurbishments on the tanks that are around town and then the continual pipe replacements that used to be wood state pipe, you know, two, two decades ago we were replacing that had that spiral wire on 'em. Most of that's gone. There's probably a little bit left, but now we're onto more like cast iron pipe and ductile iron pipe being the ones that get replaced with PVC plastic pipe for the most part.
And a lot of facility work, truthfully, we've transitioned a lot of our facilities are aging and that's where a lot of the work is. Peak demand, I spoke about that a little bit specifically in certain areas we're looking at some pinch points and whatnot, mitigating some of those. So for example, in Girdwood and also in Eagle River, we're looking at well water supply improvements in GERD wood and more like tank and storage in Eagle River over the next, you know, five to 10 years. In the past decade there was a lot of system of optimization where we, we have a lot of very pressure zones because of our elevation change. And so we have a lot of pressure regulating stations. We did a lot of system of optimization to minimize some of those facilities. There's quite a few, we have over 200 remote facilities.
One of, so this is a sampling of a list that we thought we'd show you of we of 'em that might be of interest when you're, if you haven't reviewed the plan for AMAs, that might be of interest to the committee but in no order. But in the one to six year outlook, that's these in there, the larger ones, there's other smaller ones in the plan, but probably not of consequence, but some, these are some of the larger ones. I'm not gonna read every one of 'em. But for example, the, the North airport water main, the one on the bottom, it's like an alignment along point worms off along the road on the backside to bring redundancy around the backside of the, instead of under the runway as one of the projects for how we supply water. And then heard a lot of bga, I'm not sure, but for example, we have a BGA project that maybe there's some coordination potential there. We just had one phase of BGA that was wrapping up this year and there's more to come. So that's what we're looking for and we wanted to bring to your attention is of course any opportunities for collaboration and coordination on some of these projects. That's really the big, probably hit for this group is to look through those projects.
I would, could I turn that question to you? I mean, that's a great point and you know, truthfully, I'm not sure who should be maybe the one we would follow up with just to make sure they're, you know, we've contacted you, but we have, we have, I don't think we've formally heard back right Julie, on any comments from this group? No, please.
Sorry, I have to stop sharing to, to put my microphone back on. Julie, Justin with HDR, we have heard from muni planning, we have not heard from DOT or Ammas specifically, although Aaron has been aware of, of this this plan and this, this presentation that we wanted to do with you as, as Todd mentioned, I think the main emphasis is, are is are there areas of coordination and, and so yes, who are those right people to talk with between the utility and ammas or or other agencies so that we can avoid rework in the end. And, and Todd knows the example that I, I, I put forward is Elmore Road a number of years ago came back in lovely repay of lovely improvements to Elmore and a couple years later the utility came in and did a, a big water main replacement and had to tear that up. So looking at the schedule within the plan, knowing as, as you guys just went through that things get pushed out and subject to change based on funding, are there those opportunities where we can do a better job coordinating between the utility and am a s
Yeah, that is a good question. One question I have on that, is it better to, to do the utility first and then the road comes over afterward. Is it better to do them concurrently so we know we've got road work, let's do the utility at the same time. I'm sure that it's not better to do the road first and then the utility because the road is, you know, what's on the top. So I guess of the other two, is there a priority preference?
This is Todd Carroll. So most of the projects we're into now are not expansion type projects. They're r and r, they're already in the ground. Some of these that we're talking about might be a new pipe, but most of them in the plan for the most part, unless they're in a different category, we're not really talking about today with grants and things are about the existing system areas. So it'd be existing roads, right, that we're already down and below. So it'd be a lot of opportunities where maybe there's, in my mind, improvements that are being looked at for pedestrian improvements, trail improvements that would go right on top of 30th Avenue. I have no idea if that would've touched this group. But for example, there were improvements there and we had a pipeline right under it that we worked on together between groups. You know, it's just making sure that we don't go in a couple of years later. Tear it right back up on either end. Right. So that's why we just listed some of the ones that had a little larger alignment maybe, but there are shorter ones too. But we don't wanna Yeah. Cut across International Airport Road even though it's a small cut right after somebody just repaved it that you know from my perspective,
And this is Julie with HDR again, one thing I will point out on this particular slide is that downtown to Kincaid pipeline right of way. I noticed in your plan you do have a conversation about the AC couplet in downtown and this is something that might benefit from a little bit more coordination. This downtown to Kincaid pipeline is not something the utility I think, and Todd you can correct me, is looking at in the super near term, but acquiring the right of way itself is important as you guys know for any, any infrastructure improvements. Again, something that we want to flag that you know what the utility is doing and the utility knows what aaps is doing.
And we do have several touch points. I'd like to add that every time we do a project and it's going out, it's going for review and coordination to the various groups, even DOT. But this is an early opportunity in my perspective because we're talking about projects that aren't budgeted yet even Right. And when we might phase them. So if there's a project at year 10 on one side and year seven on the other, try and work together on those.
Okay, so the online open house, even though it says it went through November 14th, it's still online. The small group presentations, that's what we're doing. We're wrapping up this month for the most part and we hope to then take in all the comments and through the end of the year and incorporate them into the final draft of the master plan that we hope to publish in the first quarter of 26. Yeah, so we're here to hear from anyone now or in the next hopefully month of anything that we missed that we really should know about. But this plan really is an evolving document through the years that, sure it's printed on paper but we work through it and projects move around. Awesome. Not really, that's what we had you, any questions?
Go ahead. Comm question member Kohlhaas, thank you for the presentation. This is great. I, I was reached, I think Brandon Taylor had communicated that AWWU had reached out to and asked for an opportunity to come and present. What I suggested is that maybe we get together with various like development services and planning and then all get in a room and have one big group presentation. That was kind of what I had in mind. I think that would be great. The other thing is yes early, because we do do project by project coordination, but to really program funding between capital program entities, you really need to look at it earlier. It's hard to be responsive to start finding money when somebody's already at more of a 35, 60 5% design level. So one thing that we could do is start looking at our, we have our public facing project dashboard that has all of our projects in our capital program, in our GIS, you know, format that we can take a look at and there might even be an opportunity to say, Hey, can we data dump this into a format that you could overlay? And then we could easily see what that, you know, if there's projects that we have in our future coming up in relation to the A WWU projects. So that might be one thing to do, but certainly we'll look at it from the capital side and then maybe you guys wanna take a look at it as well and eyeball it. But yeah, this is great to have that type of early coordination.
Yeah, thanks. So as the director of p and e that manages all of our projects at the city, seems like you make the most sense from the city perspective to have kind of alignment with the projects versus alu. Is there someone at DOT that's a good connection for projects? Is that yours Luke?
I think we probably, sorry. Luke Bowland. DOT Reconstruction engineering. I got a note to check back with our utilities folks also I to go reach out to the folks over at A NC too because there's some work going on in their vicinity to make sure they've had eyes on this as well. So.
Thanks Anna. Any other members of the public writing comments? Okay, members of public thank you for coming again, I feel for coordinating. We'll move to the next presentation, six B Glen Highway Highland Interchange updates like we'll swap out our presenters. So we'll just start by introducing yourselves and then dive in.
Yeah. Hi everybody, my name is Galen Jones. I'm with Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and I'm the project manager on the Glen Highland Interchange project. And I'm Kelly Kilpatrick. I'm the project manager with Z partnering with Galen on the project. All right. So we're here to give you a presentation today on the, basically an update on the Glen Hi Glen Highway and Highland Road Interchange project. Just a reminder, this is our second time presenting for a mats on this project. The first time we talked more about background conditions, you know, the main purpose of the project, the pro the issues we're trying to solve and went through our alternatives that we were analyzing. So we want to present to you today our preferred alternative that we're moving forward with in design. Next slide, please think. Okay, thanks. Yeah. So a couple slides on the project area and just a brief overview about the project. So we're out in Eagle River and this is what some people refer to as the South Eagle River Exit is also confusing because that doesn't intersect with Highland Road. It's Eagle River Loop Road, but there's a bridge that goes across the Glen Highway at this location and it connects to Eagle River Loop Road and up into Eagle River. So it's a heavily used interchange that hasn't been upgraded for many decades and is over capacity and, and not operating efficiently, which we'll show you in a couple sides. But a lot of facilities around in this area that need to be accommodated for solid waste services, the Anchorage Regional Landfill to the West Eagle River High School to the east and so on. Next slide please.
Those project purpose and objectives, we are trying to improve operations, the capacity of the interchange due to heavy congestion in the morning peak period. So that's that westbound to southbound movement coming out of Eagle River. The area, you know, Walmart, Highland Road, that whole area trying to get to Anchorage in the morning is heavily congested, not operation, operating efficiently. And during the project we also wanna improve safety for non-motorized users, but of course for motorized users as well. But not very many documented major safety issues at this intersection in terms of crash history, objectives wise, yeah, we already mentioned, so issues with the queuing enhance the highway, merging onto the Glen Highway. Right now it's a single lane merge. It doesn't work very efficiently. It's at capacity. And then also we want to take the opportunity to do some bridge maintenance. Next slide please.
Just a couple updates. We have PM and E has hired a project administrator to support our project manager, Tanya Hong. Let's see, his name is Robert Ner and he is starting January 5th and we will be looking forward to the additional support. A lot of great things have been happening since we've had Tanya on board. We're getting caught up with a lot of our ATPs and our appropriations, so it's been really welcome to have additional support in our project world for PME. The other thing I, you know, I just wanted to share, I didn't, I was sitting in my car waiting to hear the end of the segment. It was one a Jen White Vision zero. So if you guys can go back and look at it from NPR Radio, I, I think it's always valuable to hear what is conversation across the nation about Vision Zero. So I, I hope to find it and hear the whole thing because I only heard about half the segment, but it was quite interesting.
That's great. Thank you. Member Kohlhaas, other member comments? I guess one comment that, that I'll make is that this morning I had come straight from being over at DOT talking with being part of the, the group looking at the amount of diamond project. So thanks to DOT for that great workshop that went, went really well and, and I was able to answer questions that came up with regards to the AMATS perspectives that were shared with regards to I to Dimond both the tip description and the purpose that was that we discussed and that the policy committee had passed. So I was able to, to fill in knowing that Aaron was out sick. So anyway, it was good, good conversation. New ideas that hadn't come up before it sounded like we're getting discussed. So I'm excited to see where, where that process goes. But it, it seemed like a really good story.
So other, other member comments. Okay, we'll move then on to item eight, public comments. Are there any members of the public who would like to make a general comment? Go ahead. Galen Jones with Alaska DOT. Just wanted to let everybody know if you didn't already, we're having a public meeting for the Seward Highway, and Tudor Road interchange on December 10th, 4:30 to 6:30 at the library. So we'll be presenting the project goals and just early on sort of introducing the project to the public. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Are there any other members of the public who would like to make a comment? Okay, seeing none. We are now to item nine, adjournment. Entertain a motion to adjourn. Okay, Mr. Jager, seconded by Member Babb. Meeting adjourned at 2:40 PM Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thanks, Aaron.
We have a couple slides from the great question. It's one of the main questions we're getting. So we're, we are gonna focus on that, right? It's a huge priority for pedestrian safety, whether it's on motorized, on a bike, walking, whatever. So we are, we are definitely focused on that as here existing transit and non non-motorized facilities. It is a goal to enhance, you know, maintain what's out there or enhance it where we can. So we are definitely coordinating with transit. We've gone to Bpac, we've met with several stakeholders and we're gaining feedback. Next slide. So when we first presented the diverge about this is that typical section at the bottom is the existing, or sorry, it uses the existing bridge. There's about 55 feet wide. And so to retrofit it for a diverging diamond, we have a barrier down the middle to separate the, you know, opposing traffic.
We keep that pedestrian pathway on the north side. We are actually narrowing that pathway up a little bit to give some room to the traveling lanes and provide that median barrier. But it this, as you can see the, if you can see the green, it's a little hard to see for some of us probably. But that green is the pedestrian route and that's kind one of the drawbacks I think from a foreign interchange having roundabouts is there's quite a bit of circuitous routing for pedestrians as they go through, like you were talking about bicycles. Two have to cross all those. So that's eight, eight lanes of crossing it's single lanes, which is better than, than two way lanes. Single lane directions, it's one, one more than exists today at seven. And so hearing the feedback, how do we shorten that route? How do we try to reduce those number of crossings?
So if we go to the next slide, that's what we've been focusing on right now and we're working with M&O utilities and statewide bridge to see how do we, how do we change this cross section using an existing bridge and try to reduce that routing. So looking at some of the other diverge routes that are lower 48, quite a few of them have pedestrian routing down the middle. We actually looked at this at Glenn/Muldoon, if that new diamond was together, the pedestrian routing would be down the middle. We have two separate bridges so it appears it's just on one side. So pedestrian routing down the middle actually reduces our lane crossings to six and it shortens it from about 1,330 feet to 900 feet. So it's a lot. We wanna get people the shortest distance. We don't often make crossings that aren't safe, that aren't there.
Working with oversized vehicles. So solid waste services we've met with with Alaska Trucking Association and just got their general, I mean each, a lot of projects that go through interchanges do meet with them and and you know, get reminded of the size of their trucks, what they need to do. So this is gonna be treated the same as as Glenn/Muldoon, of any oversized vehicles that get permitted to use interchange. They'll be able to go up and over, they can't go under. If there's any signs or bollards that we place in there, I think you might have seen them on Glenn/Muldoon, we did put them there 'cause it avoids the general public from trying to take that route. If it looks in apparent route that they could take in the winter, it'll be a reinforced concrete path that they can take just to make sure they can avoid the bridge and, and still get up and over removable removal signs and also the roundabouts, typical roundabouts, they'll have reinforced truck aprons for all the movements. We show a movement there of the landfill if they wanted, looks like if they wanted to go to VFW.
Anything else there? No. Okay, next slide. Moving onto the landfill. So met with them, they gave us a tour of kind of how the operations, one thing that lined up when you talk about lining up with master pines and stuff, they are working on their gate changes. So it was perfect timing. We met with them and this gave us the opportunity because of the diverge about it does kind of expand that footprint. It brings our, the, the roundabout slightly onto their area. But one thing working with m and o is we really want them to have a turnaround because of the roundabout feature. So into this new right of way, you can see there's that white rectangular triangular thing. We show a turnaround for plows to be able to turn around still within the future DOT right of way. And it also allows any vehicles to stop within the right of way and out of the roundabout if they're waiting at the gate. So the landfill is looking to relocate and have two gates fencing and since we are pushing back they would slightly realign their access there to the north.
Alright, last slide. So just wrapping things up, talk a little bit about schedule and next steps. We had a open house previously or in winter 2025. We're continuing our stakeholder input, you know, presenting at, at AMAs committees. So the, the, the alternative has been selected and we've begun design on that alternative. So we'll do a a 95% review in the spring and then we'll advertise this for construction in the fall to get construction bids and then build it in summer of 2027. And I did wanna mention this is a federally funded project through the National Highway Performance Program, the NHPP program. Any questions? Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? Know we had some comments and questions earlier, so thank you for the presentation. Are there any comments from the public?
Oh sorry, this is Bart. I just wanted to thank the project team and DOT for accommodating that transit stop. We just had a good discussion last month and I'm glad to see it's already been making the presentation that they're working on it. So just wanted to appre show my appreciation for them.
Thanks so much far and the other members of the public, I guess far as speaking as members of the committee, but seeing none, thanks so much for coming. Really appreciate your presentation and thank you very much. Next on our agenda is item six, information item six C, the 2025 fourth quarter obligation report.
So just a heads up to everyone that our request for proposals has been released for our Wildlife corridor plan from Glen on the Glen Highway. Basically it's airport heights all the way out to the parks y. So we're gonna try and get a consultant on board to help us out with exploring issues with large mammals crossing the road in front of vehicles. So we've got some historic traffic data that indicates we've got some hot spots where they tend to migrate across the Glen Highway more often than not. And so we're gonna look at that and hopefully come up with some possible recommendations for future construction projects that will help us get large animals off our road. So we're gonna be coordinating a lot with not only Ammas and, and you all here, but we're, we're trying to form a team that will help us get this plan moving forward. So this is kind of just your heads up, some of you all will be ped to join our team and help us get this thing moving. So we're hoping to have the proposals in sometime in January. We will review those and get a consultant on board early spring. And then, and I'm sorry, what section
I just wanted to give a quick update on the downtown street engineering study, the right of way management study. The downtown street engineering study is still in progress. We are approaching a final draft that we will be circulating sometime in the next couple months. And then for the right of way management study, we are approaching a final draft on a parking piece of that study. It was broken up into the parking and the snow and ice and the parking study is probably going to go out for a review and comment again in the next few months. Of course our schedules are dependent on staff and availability and everything, but both of those are moving forward, so.
Yeah, thanks. Just one quick comment. We are holding a public meeting next Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30. The assembly has amended our budget to add an additional day for seniors to ride free. So we're trying to choose which weekday that'll be. So if anybody wants to weigh in on that decision, our public meeting is next Thursday and information's on our website. Thanks.
Okay. Moved by member Kohlhaas. Seconded by member Babb, are there any discussion on the motion or any amendments? Okay, hearing none. Are there any objections to approving the motion? Okay, hearing none, that motion is approved unanimously. Let's move on then to item 5B. the 2023 to 2026 Funding Program amendment number four. And is this one yours Aaron?
Yeah, this will be me. Hi everybody. Aaron Jongenelen I'm the executive director of AMATS. Sorry, I'm not there in person. I'm home sick, so I figured I'd be staying at home instead of sharing my germs with everybody. So before you is tip amendment number four. We are making some changes to the program in a number of different ways. As my voice is kind of going out, I'm not gonna be able to talk about every change. So I'm just gonna highlight some major ones. Table two in the roadway, one of the big ones there is the Rabbit Creek Road Rehabilitation Project. Move the 5 million in Right of Way funding in FY 26 to beyond FY 26 and move the design funding from FY 25 to 26 and reduced it to seven 50,000. So that's just a requirement to keep the project moving forward. Then we have a new project, the l and i street Rehabilitation. So this was originally a pavement replacement project in table six, but it was moved into table two complete streets due to the increase in project scope. We've had discussions about this project a couple of times now. So you're just now seeing the action taken to updated in the tip based on those discussions.
Let's see. Next table three non-motorized. One of the big ones here is the Fish Creek Trail Project is moving to beyond FY 26. We had already kind of talked about this, but unfortunately that's just where we're at with the project. Just trying to keep that moving forward. So we've already accounted for that in the 27th through 30 tip, and this is just updating it for the 26th fiscal year, the active transportation payment replacement pot of funding. We updated both the 25 and 26 funding, the 2025 funding. We updated to show that, that we did not obligate all 2 million that was originally shown in there. A lot of it is just there's limited staff time and resources, so we're not able to keep moving forward on a lot of different things. Unfortunately at this time. We did update the FY 26 funding to reduce it from 723 K to four 50 for the Sitka Street Park project.
However, after talking with Parks and Rec, it looks like we need to go ahead and remove that 450 K for design efforts as the Municipal Parks and Rec is not gonna use a amounts funding for the Sitka Street Park project. Quite honestly, a lot of it is due to the time it takes to move forward on projects. They need that project immediately and using federal funding takes too long. So that would be one of the changes I recommend to you all today. Also, we need to update the, we'll update the memo. So it says 1.841 million, not 1,841 million.
We added a new project into the non-motorized table and this is the Minnesota Drive Sidewalk repairs. This is another project that we've talked about a few times. It was in the table, table six, but it's being moved into table three due to the increase in project scope, table four plans and studies. We'll update that in the memo as well to say studies instead of study. The AC corridor plan is being moved from FY 26 to FY 29. This was another one that was talked about just based on the limited resources at the municipality, Anchorage and the Department of Transportation. We are not able to get that project started in FY 26 and so it's FY 29 at this point. Congestion mitigation, air quality, there's some pretty exciting projects here. The first is a new project, the Downtown Transit Center, AMMAS and DOT are working together to try and use some of the state CMAC funding for this project.
Chair? I do have some. I have a couple to go through if you don't mind. Sure. Okay. But Aaron did catch some of the ones that I've already had identified earlier to him during our briefing. Let's see, this one is just a question on the Downtown Transit Center. It says utilities and construction for FY 26. And just looking at that in relationship to the Third Avenue reconstruction project E to Gamble, I believe. And just looking at it as a coordination item, if you know there's driveways or circulation that would be better supported from the work that we're gonna be doing on the roadway corridor because we had contemplated turning a one way into a two way roadway. So just as we move forward, it's mostly just a comment that we really need to get that third Avenue project underway so that I think it would be a good companion project with the transit center, assuming that's still on third Avenue. As far as the location. And let's see, he caught the one on hundred 20th Avenue, so that's great. And just lastly on the table 10, the AU Briga Street project, we do not wish to reduce the total project cost. We would like to retain the full original project cost amount. So that was something that I did confirm with the project manager. And that's all my comments.
No, no. It looks like it was just an error, maybe a miscommunication on what needed to change for this project. So I'll confirm with Melinda and Tanya after we're done here today and just make sure that I have everything correct. But it sounds like there's no reduction in any aspect of the Briga Street one. So the only thing would be changing is updating the project description and because that's all grant funded, they already have the grant and they're not going over their grant amount, it's still fiscally constrained.
I know both Spenard projects are incorrect in there it shows that the MOA is paying a hundred percent of the match, the split between the state and the municipality. And then I didn't go through and look at all of 'em and see if that issue carried through. But any arterial should have the split back. It seems like that's actually been incorrect for how
We like, I just need somebody to tell me what it's supposed to be. 'cause I keep getting mixed messages on what it is. So if you guys have errors that you noticed, can you please note them and send them over and we can include them as part of the memo to the policy committee?
Not that I'm aware of. I think everything is in alignment with where we're at with that. Some of the changes we're making are because of the 26 through 27 tip discussions that we had. You know, specifically the AC corridor plan, that kind of stuff. So everything's in alignment as far as I know.
Another question about table seven and just the, we have those changes here, but I know that there's a few projects in table seven that may be changed. Their scope or their, their budget may be changed due to some changes regarding like lane drops and, and things like that. The new policies about lane drops and other, you know, scope impacts possibly. And is that something that we should be thinking about during this amendment or are those, are we going to be looking at future amendments for those projects? I'm just curious what, where some of those projects stand specifically. I just, for one, just to pick one project, the northern side HSIP project,
Was gonna say it might be a future amendment just because the, the financial plan for HSIP hasn't been approved yet and so we're still waiting for that approval. And again, I think it's largely tied up. We've got a lot of staff tied up on the west coast. Okay. And so I think the HSIP financial plan has to be approved by the commissioner and then once that's approved, then we'll know kind of the scope and scale of the projects that get to advance, then we can start to tackle the scopes. So I think it, it'll probably not be done in time for this amendment.
Hey, thanks Taylor. Yes, we are much more virtual today 'cause of the smaller room, so we will do better with that. Any other questions or comments in the committee? Okay, let's move to public comments then. Are there any members of the public who would like to make comments on this item? Okay, let's see. So put your hands over you online. Looks like I see one. So Nancy, go ahead.
Hello everybody. So we have our quarter four obligation report for FY 25. This we are required to be plus or minus 0%. So it's basically how do we do overall once getting our funds obligated. I will let you know that unfortunately there was about $9.4 million that were not obligated in FY 25. A number of that is from the roadway program. So the complete streets table and those are for projects like Rabbit Creek Road Reconstruction, Potter Drive Rehabilitation, and Mountain Air Drive. Some of the ones we've kind of already talked about having some delays based on the staffing limitations. And then from the non-motorized table we had about 2 million in the Anchorage area wide pathway and trails rehab or pavement replacement program that was not obligated. So that's the largest chunk there. As I mentioned earlier, this money is not lost, it's just something that we'll be able to utilize at a later date. So once we get to that point where we can use it at a later date, which is not with the 26th program, but probably with 27 or later we'll be bringing forward recommendations on how to use that funding. That's all I had. Thank you.
Yes, thank you for that. So next meeting, it looks like we'll have a few possible action items. We'll have to, we may have the 2026 safety targets depending on if we can get those done in time. And then we may have a resolution of support that we're gonna talk about at that time. And then maybe something with the climate action plan. We're still trying to figure out the agenda as things are moving swiftly. I did want to note that the next TAC meeting, let's see, is normally scheduled for January 1st, the first Thursday of 2026. We will not be meeting January 1st. So more than likely what we'll be doing is moving the meeting to the 8th of January. So I just wanted to give you a heads up there then that's the intent. I'll also try and keep you updated whether or not the main conference room is back to working order by our January meeting. We really hope it is. If not, we will probably do one 70 again. Thank you.
Okay, any other member questions or comments? Any comments from the public on this item? Okay, that moves us out of the six information items and into number seven. Any any committee comments, any members of the committee who would like to share comments? Go ahead, member White.
Okay. So we got a motion by member white. Do we have a second? Second. Second by member Babb. Is that clear enough for staff as to what that motion includes? Yes it is. Thank you. Okay, perfect. Are there any, any other discussion amendments to the motion and hearing none on there? Are there any objections to the motion? Okay, hearing none, that motion is approved. Thank you for that. Let's move on to the next action item, item five C, the BPAC appointment. And this one looks like it's Emily.
Yes. Hello everyone. Emily Wiser. I'm the non-motorized coordinator with a MS. So you've heard us say several times over the past few months that we currently have three open seats on the bpac. We've been advertising those to the public. One of those is the public member seat where you don't need an affiliation. One is a business organization seat and one is a community or environmental organization seat. So we have received two applications for the public member seat. We went ahead and recommended one of those just as the first one received. But then at our BPAC meeting this week, the chair pointed out that she and another member are affiliated with organizations that would be qualified for that community or environmental organization seat. And both of them are currently in public member seats. So we have two applications, one open public member seat, but we were thinking it, we might as well move one of the current public members into that community environmental organization seat and allow two new public members to join the committee. We don't really have a policy one way or another on that. So you guys are more than welcome to recommend that or not as you teach it. But you know, just in the interests of allowing more people to participate and contribute when they're interested. And also helping the bpac meet quorum. We are not able to meet quorum at our last meeting because it's still a six member quorum even with vacancies.
And let me just check my notes. I think that's all I wanted to mention. So both of the applications are before you and the materials, like I said, we wrote the recommendation for one of them, but we thought could also consider recommending both of them and shifting one of the current members to the other seat. Thank you.
I don't think we have a formal requirement for documenting that, but yes, the implication is that they are representing their organization on the committee. So I did ask both of them to just, you know, if they need to check with their organization since we don't have a formal process for that, it's pretty much up to them to say yes, I'm, I'm authorized to represent my organization.
It, it's probably not typical. They're both good candidates and the second one came through the day that this agenda was due. So we had already gotten everything together and notified that first applicant that if they were able to attend, which I can't see the full participant list, but I don't think either of them were able to attend today. So it was kind of a last minute. Now we have two applicants, but yeah.
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