Urban Design Commission - April 29, 2026 - 2026-04-29 18:30:00

Good evening, it's 6:32, April 29th, 2026, and the meeting of the Urban Design Commission will now come to order. May we please have a roll call? Monica Sullivan. Here. Edith McKee.

Here. Allison Lennig. Here. Julia Foland. Here.

Alexandra Nanello. Here. Trevor Straight. Here. James Kolas is excused.

You have a quorum. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe get a motion to approve the minutes from March 20th, 2026.

It's been moved by Commissioner Lennig and seconded by Commissioner Straight. Are there any corrections to the minutes?

Are there any objections to the minutes being approved? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. We will now move on to disclosures. Are there any disclosures?

Um, I have a disclosure this evening. Um, I work for HDR, and, um, Galen Jones, who will be presenting Case 2026-0051, is a project manager with the DOT that I work with on other projects. I don't have any direct involvement with the With the Glen Highway and Highland Road interchange improvements, I don't stand to have any financial gain from that project directly or indirectly, and, um, I was not aware of the project until I reviewed it recently.

I will now hand this over to Commissioner Lennig.

Thank you. Um, may I please get a motion to direct, uh, Commissioner McKee to participate in case 2026-0051?

Sorry, uh, it's The motion is moved by Trevor— or Commissioner Street, seconded by Commissioner Folland.

Um, is there any discussion or objection to the motion?

Seeing none and hearing none, uh, Commissioner— Chair McKee is directed to participate in Case 2026-0051.

I'll hand this back to you now. Okay, we don't have any items on the consent agenda, unfinished business, or items on the regular agenda this evening. Therefore, we will move on to the public hearings, and I'll read the public process.

The Urban Design Commission meets the second and fourth Wednesday of each month except holidays as regular meetings. If the Urban Design Commission fails to complete its agenda for its regular meetings, the commission carries over the remainder of the agenda to the following meeting date. The procedure by which the public may speak to the Urban Design Commission at its meeting is: one, after the staff presentation is completed on public hearing items, the chair will ask for public testimony on the issue. Persons who wish to testify will follow the time limits established in the Urban Design Commission Rules of Procedure. Petitioners, including all his/her/their representatives, will have 10 minutes.

Rebuttal by the petitioner may be allowed when the time has been reserved. Representatives of groups, community councils, PTAs, etc., will have 5 minutes. Individuals will have 3 minutes. When your testimony is complete, you may be asked questions by the Commission. You may only testify once on any issue unless questioned by the Commission.

4. Any part of— any party of interest wishing to appeal shall first file with the Planning Director within 7 days of the Commission's decision made on the record a written notice of intent to appeal in accordance with AMC 21.03.050A4A. Commission recommendations to the Anchorage Assembly are not appealable. Following approval of the written findings of fact and decision, any party of interest may within 20 days file an appeal by filing a notice of appeal and paying the appeal fee and deposit in accordance with Section 2103050. The notice of appeal must be filed with the planning director on a form prescribed by the municipality.

If the appellant is not the applicant, the appellant notice of appeal shall include proof of service on the applicant.

Maybe please have staff's presentation.

Yes, thank you, Chair McKee. So this is a trail review for the Amats Fish Creek Trail connection. This trail would be approximately 1.1 miles. It would be a new non-motorized pathway extending from Northern Lights to the Coastal Trail segment. This new trail would cause a segment of the Coastal Trail between the tunnel from Westchester Lagoon to the Fish Creek bridge to be repaved and relocated to facilitate this connection.

The majority of the project corridor is within Alaska Railroad right-of-way, plus one easement on private property near the southern end of the project. The department's review, we found this trail to be consistent with elements of the comprehensive plan and other plans and studies with the municipality. We did not receive Comments objecting to this trail from reviewing agencies. There is a— I'll point out one additional item that was sent to the Commission. It includes comments that we received after the staff report was finalized up until about midday, early afternoon today.

Those comments were generally supportive of the trail. There was one comment at the end that noted the resolution from the Turnagain Community Council is from 2016 and there is one from 2022. I'll just note that, um, we'll add that to the portal just so we have the, the correct year of the resolution from Turnagain. Uh, that's the 2014 is the one that was included in the application materials. I'll note the application did include minutes from January 2025 for a meeting with the Turnagain Community Council.

So there still was some recent documentation of, uh, that council's thoughts on the trail. Um, with that, the, the department, uh, supports or recommends approval of this trail. I'm here for questions, and there is a member of the project team to give a presentation.

Are there any questions of staff?

Okay, will the petitioner please come forward? Please state and spell your name for the record.

My name is Matt Edge. I'm a CRW engineer.

My name is Matt Edge. I'm with CRW Engineering Group. I'm the design project manager for the team.

M-A-T-T-E-D-G-E. You will have 10 minutes to present. Would you like to reserve any of your time for rebuttal? Sure, whatever time is left over at the end of the presentation. OK.

There's an advanced slide advance remote that I was— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thank you very much.

So yes, I'm here to present for the Fish Creek Trail project.

So I'm here with several members of the project team. There's Noah King, who is here for the DOT. Taylor Keegan is here with MOA Parks and Recreation. And Rebecca Marks is here with Solstice Alaska. She's part of our public involvement team.

So this project is going to construct a new multimodal trail from Northern Lights Boulevard to the Coastal Trail. The project Goals include also limiting access to both the Fish Creek estuary and Alaska Railroad tracks that have trespass issues along the corridor. And throughout the process, we've been balancing stakeholder needs and impacts, including privacy issues, safety, and environmental stewardship. So this project's been going on for a long time, over almost— oh, actually, almost 30 years.

The 1997 Anchorage Area Wide Trails Plan, and it's gone through several iterations since then. And this is the final implementation of that goal that was identified so long ago.

Project is funded through the AMATS process, which is a federal match. So the municipality of Anchorage provides about a 10% match for the project. So 90% of the funds are provided by the federal government. And that's added through a TIP process that the project is nominated for. So this is our project area.

I'm trying to get the laser pointer to work, but— so anyways, Northern Lights Boulevard is on the southern end, and the northern end is the Coastal Trail. There's an existing Fish Creek Trail connection that ends at a bridge, a pedestrian bridge over Northern Lights Boulevard. Then to get to the Coastal Trail, you have to travel north or south to connections, but there's nothing that really routes you through here other than a really unimproved access that is really— is used for maintenance by AWW and Marathon Fuel. That's the intent. It's been fenced off, but people cut through the gate and get in there.

But it's really unsafe to have a lot of traffic in there, pedestrian traffic, because people get up onto the railroad tracks and then there's, there's safety issues associated with that. So the railroad's very interested in providing an established corridor for non-motorized traffic that'll keep people away from the tracks and routed through the area. So they're a very important stakeholder. So back in 2022, when our project started, we certainly began with developing alternatives. We looked at We divided the project up in the north and south segments, split right essentially where the Fish Creek travels under the railroad embankment here.

And we developed 3 route alternatives for both the north and the south, including 2 that route through the Fish Creek estuary and another alternative on the south side that was on the opposite side of the railroad tracks as as currently, as the main alternatives were shown in the, in the area-wide trails plan.

We've engaged a ton of stakeholders in this process, and this is just a partial list, including the Turnagain Community Council, Spanard Community Council, Greatland Trust, Bike Anchorage, DOT, Marathon Fuel, ADW, the railroad, There's just so many people involved in having input into the process. It's become always a challenge to navigate the tight corridor of issues that arise when we're trying to develop a project. And those are ongoing. In fact, just last night we had an invited stakeholder working group with multiple different groups to talk about some of the aesthetic features along the trail.

As I mentioned, this project started in 2022. We've had several public open houses, uh, one in 2020, October 2022, and another one in March 2025. We are currently at the 75% design, which is the packet you got, which is plans-in-hand review. So we have a pre-PS&E and then a final PS&E to go out the door. So hopefully we are bidding this project later this year, end of this year, early next year, and construction in 2027.

We've received several community resolutions. This is the one that was mentioned just by a minute ago by staff, the Attorney and Community Council 2022-07 resolution. I do have a copy if anybody wants to see it. That resolution really just selected one of those alternatives that I showed early on. With some conditions that we get the trail as close to the railroad tracks as we can.

And we're essentially designing the alternative that they selected. So also have Smart Community Council resolutions, Anchorage Assembly resolutions, and the Parks and Rec Commission resolution all in support of the project.

So this is our proposed design. Down at the left-hand side, which is the south side of the project, we are tying into the existing trail where the overpass goes over Northern Lights Boulevard, routing the trail as close to the railroad tracks as we can. We do have minimum separations we have to maintain from the railroad tracks for safety issues. And then, I'm sorry, oh. That's mine.

Yeah.

Oh, this one works too. So, all right. Thank you.

So where we cut, there's a kind of long or big hill in this section of the trail and goes down to Fish Creek. Where we cross Fish Creek, we'll have a 40-foot-long pedestrian bridge. Supported on piles, and then back on standard grade. The project is routed close to the railroad tracks, but also the railroad wants us as far away from them as we can be. So we're trying to balance, you know, both not cutting down more trees than we have to, maintaining our separation from the railroad tracks, and we have a Marathon fuel line that runs through there as well that we have to try to avoid.

So as we extend to the north along the road right-of-way, we get to the northern end. There is a driveway that crosses this segment here for a property owner that lives right off the coastal trail. But then we do a switchback in this section, northern end, to go down about 15 feet of grade drop between the the end of the Fish Creek Trail and the Coastal Trail. And then we are realigning a segment of the Coastal Trail to improve safety and sight distance where people come off of the existing Fish Creek Trail Bridge. If you've been there, it's, it's a very sharp corner with a fence, and there's lots of crashes and other safety issues that are occurring right at that point.

So we're going to push it out a little bit further into the, um, towards the inlet and improve the sight distance there. So with that, I'll open it up to questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions of the petitioner?

Is it not working?

Okay, there we go. Commissioner Straight.

Hi, thanks for coming and presenting. I had a couple questions that I wanted to go through on, on the project. The first one is the, the fencing. So it looks like there's basically going to be continuous fencing along the railroad. Yes, on that side, and then additional fencing on the kind of the other side of the pathway as well, or trail as well, perhaps over by the right-of-way.

It was hard for me to tell where the, the fencing on the, the left-hand project, left of the project, would be? So the estuary side, the fencing will be just off the trail. Okay. It'll be short fencing, uh, 3-foot. Right now it's designed as 3-foot tall chain link, uh, fencing with wood cladding to try to blend into the environment.

On the railroad side, it is, uh, 6-foot tall, uh, chain link fencing with, with barrier on it. Okay, so you said the, the 3-foot high is basically just off the pathway? Yes. All right. Yep.

Okay. Yeah. It looks like the chain link fence that is in between the new path and the railroad has barbed wire at the top. Is that correct? It's, I believe so, yes.

Is that required by the railroad? The issue is trespass for the railroad. So yes, that's what we're, my understanding is that's what's required. Okay.

Is there any— I guess I don't know how much wildlife makes it to this part of town. Is there any concern about getting like a moose or something in between those two fences and trapped in there? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, we're— as far as the next phase of design, we're also looking at openings in the fence. We may even do—.

You're here. Yes, I'm here. We're good. Sorry for the interruption. Opening the fence to allow people to escape if they need to, things of that nature.

So we don't need it for safety. There's options to open it up. OK. We also don't want to provide routes for impromptu trails through the estuary. Right.

That totally makes sense.

The intersection with the driveway, it looks like the pathway is coming down at about 4% or something like that through that area, 4.5%. Um, is there any concern with kind of that interaction.

—And they're— I know essentially they're parallel for a short period of time before they cross. Is there any concern about safety issues at that intersection? Yeah, the intent was to try to provide as much sight distance as we can. And having on one side the parallel route allows people to anticipate potential conflict and then cross it as close to 90 degrees as we can. So I mean, there's always that— kind of thought, but we're trying to mitigate that as much as possible.

We do have bollards between the trail and the driveway to try to keep separation there, and then the crossing of the railroad is still in development. Okay, so there could be, you know, a gate or other features there to mitigate, you know, crossing of the railroad, or it could be completely open to pedestrian traffic. So it's still Okay, development. Speaking of clear zone, I do appreciate the, the thought and component of the design to go through and essentially clear the clear zone for the, for the pathway both on the coastal trail and coming down when you connect into it. I really like that feature.

The Fish Creek Bridge— is Fish Creek in Nagemus?

No. Okay. Yeah, it's got a weir at the bottom right there at the Coastal Trail, so there's not migratory fish that are going up there. I think it was at one time, but it's not currently. So from what I can tell in the plans, it looks like Fish Creek's still gonna be in a culvert.

Yes. But we're still building a bridge over it. Yes, there's multiple drainage culverts. There's the main culvert for the, for the creek, and then there's several overflow culverts for high water. So we're spanning all of those.

You know, there's also the Marathon fuel line that runs right through the creek at the end of the culvert. There was one alternative that we evaluated to, actually was on the east side of the railroad tracks and then traversed underneath the railroad at that culvert location. So we would've opened it up and daylighted essentially that section of Fish Creek. That was not one of the selected alternatives, but obviously the cost of that was fairly substantial as well. Okay, so then the kind of the bridge and the MSE wall that it looks like is through that area is more to protect estuary than to provide additional, I guess, open up the creek in that case.

Correct, yes, it's not, uh, it's not there to open up the creek. It's for the trail, uh, navigation through there. Okay, excuse me. All right, um, I think that's all I have at the moment. Thank you.

Commissioner Sullivan. Uh, hi, through the chair. I'm looking at Sheet E6, and I see the detail, uh, pathway branch trimming limits, and it says here that it should be, uh, clearing and trimming. Does this is something that will need maintenance often? I mean, I'm not a civil engineer, so I'm not, uh, you know, where you trim all the trees and then they grow back.

So I guess often is, I'm not sure exactly what timing that would be. I mean, there will be periodically times where vegetation will infringe upon use of the trail and that would have to be maintained. But it just depends on, you know, how things grow. I couldn't give you a specific time. And who maintains the trail?

MOA Parks and Recreation, yeah. Which is the same as all the other trails. All the other trails. Okay, thank you.

I have questions. I have to go last.

So is there a plan to include traditional names on any of the wayfinding? So MOA Parks has a wayfinding program for, for signage. There is not right now currently a plan to incorporate that into our Fish Creek design. We do have several alternatives currently being developed and evaluated by invited participant working groups. That include artwork and designs along the big retaining wall, the 350-foot retaining wall.

One of those two designs is by Dinena Artist. So to incorporate some of those features, we also have an outlook or overlook area on the project that looks out over the estuary. That same working group chose to not include any wayfinding signage at that overlook. They wanted it to be more about the estuary and nature than some sort of interpretive design. But that said, you know, there's, there's always opportunities to incorporate placemaking.

There is a Fish Creek placemaking sign further up the trail already, but yeah, not currently part of this project.

Another question that I had is it looks like it's proposing to use wood fencing, and then I just didn't know if there was any concerns about— is it proposing to use wood fencing? And then if there was any concerns about— since there were comments about trespass and other things, like with the longevity of a wood fence versus using something that might would withstand somebody taking it apart?

So for vandalism type things, we haven't really— that hasn't come up as a concern. The, the fencing along the estuary side, it's kind of this balance between trying to make something robust, easy to maintain, not crazy expensive, but also soft as far as the appearance. So There's— we actually, we're still evaluating those alternatives. The wood-clad chain link is something we used on the other section of Fish Creek Trail, so it worked pretty well and is maintainable. But yeah, specifically for vandalism, it hasn't, hasn't come up, but the wood-clad is fairly common materials and easy to fix if need be.

And then My next question was, on one of the typical sections, it looks like the, the grade is being raised and the drainage is being directed across the pathway down a slope and towards an existing private driveway. Was there any concerns? It's on Sheet B3. It's the typical section in the middle, it looks like drainage is being directed against a unidirectional cross slope and then towards a private driveway, whereas the other slope on the other side is being directed away from the private driveway. I can't think of exactly the location that that would be, but we definitely do not want to direct drainage towards any private property.

I'm not sure if that is the area in the north side of the project where we have the driveway that's parallel to parallel to the trail for a good segment. That's still all within railroad right-of-way.

I think that was it for me. Thank you.

Thanks. Commissioner Straight. Yeah, sorry, I missed a question that I had previously regarding the fence. In the plans, the fence between the trail and the railroad is identified as a AWU fence currently. Who's going to be kind of the final owner on maintenance required for the fence?

MOA Parks will be the final owner for maintenance when this project is complete. Currently, the or existing fence was installed as part of construction of the AWU maintenance road that runs parallel to where we want to put the trail. And so that's why it's called that AWU fence. Okay. Is there any concerns with AWU about them being able to still access that down that side of the right-of-way, I guess?

So not access— um, this is the design vehicle for the entire project is a fully loaded Vactor truck based on AWU specifications. So our bridge, our trail, everything is based on that. So we're accommodating their maintenance along the corridor. We are in discussions with them about providing access points to the estuary at points where they have existing easements and they need to maintain their sewer system that runs right through the estuary. Okay, thanks.

I actually have one more question for you. Sorry.

So I noticed, um, in their comments back from 2022— so the design may have substantially changed since that time— there were some comments by property owners adjacent that the trail would significantly impact their view. And I noticed looking through the section that the trail has height elevation above existing ground by as much as 11 to 16 feet in some sections, but that's sort of beyond where the residential area. So did the project team kind of evaluate what the impact would be to a property owner's viewshed from the back of their property? So is the trail even visible from the back of their property? So, so currently, no.

The original comments, we— some of the alternatives included routing the trail just at grade at the top of a bluff within the railroad right-of-way. So there's a bluff on the west-hand side that kind of overlooks where the railroad tracks are. Multiple property owners have kind of fenced those— the area about up to 40 feet and utilize it as their yards now. So initially, some of the alternatives extended the trail through, through railroad right-of-way, but through the areas that they were using as their backyards. The current design actually, we're creating that 350-foot-long soldier pile concrete retaining wall along those, along the fence line essentially where those backyards are, and setting our trail at the bottom of that retaining wall.

So we're 12 feet or so, up to 12 feet lower than the, the grade where the, where the yards are. So we don't expect anybody to be able to see anything regarding the trail from those properties. Great, thank you.

Thank you. Um, I will now open the hearing to public testimony. Is there anyone wishing to testify?

Please come forward.

Please state and spell your name for the record and whether you are testifying as an individual or representative of a group. Hi, I'm Diana Rhodes with the Anchorage Park Foundation, testifying for that organization. We are a strong supporter of the Fish Creek Trail, have been For a very long time, ever since the 1997 trails plan, this has been a dream for people of Anchorage.

There are 6 bonds that have passed, voter-supported bonds to pass in support of this project, providing the 9% local match. We remain very positive about this for connecting neighbors between Turnagain and Spinard and to the Coastal Trail with our downtown neighbors. Safe way to make that happen.

Thank you. We also just wanted to acknowledge that there will be an Indigenous Place Names Plaza, one of the projects that Anchorage Park Foundation has done with the Native Village of Eklutna. And that will be on the coastal trail right at the location of the estuary. And so that will be one of the 32 indigenous place names signages. And in this particular instance where that plaza will be, it will be a plaza so similar to the one at Westchester Lagoon.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to provide testimony?

Um, would the petitioner like to use their remaining time for rebuttal?

Uh, no, that's all right. Thank you. Are there any more questions from the commission for the petitioner or staff?

Seeing none, the public hearing is now closed. The matter now rests with the body. We will move and vote. May we have a motion to approve Case 2026-0047.

It's been moved by Commissioner Lennig. Mover, would you please state your motion?

Yes, I move in case 2026-0047 to approve the AMATS Fish Creek Trail connection.

It's been seconded by Commissioner Straight. Commissioner Lennig, would you please speak to your motion? Yes, I intend to support the motion. I think it's very clear through this presentation and through the many, almost 30 years, as you said, of project development that a lot of stakeholder comments were taken into account for this latest design. Um, I think this is a really critical connection in the Greenbelt system.

I think that's one of the strong points of the city is that we have a strong Greenbelt, um, that helps with pedestrian movement, um, throughout the city that's primarily driven by cars. So it's pretty nice to have that connection. Um, based on the staff findings, I mean, I agree that Table 1 that they provided really demonstrates that the plans have identified this trail as a missing connection, um, and that it fulfills a lot of the adopted plans in the city. Um, and I think it will be a huge asset to Anchorage, and I appreciate the presentation and the thought that's gone into this design.

Commissioner Strait, would you like to speak to your second? Yeah, I, I, looking through the design, I, I can appreciate kind of all the different restrictions of trying to place a pathway through this corridor, and it It appears to me that the alternative selected here seems to be a good solution that seems to balance kind of the needs of the local residents, the railroad, and protection on the estuary. And so I plan to support this amendment or this motion.

Are there any other commissioners wishing to speak to the motion and/or add findings?

I will.

I agree. I intend to support the motion. I think a lot of thought and care went into addressing the concerns that were brought up through the public involvement process, especially their concerns about trespass. The proposed project will increase the use of non-motorized system, promote and improve health and quality of life, improve safety and security, connecting communities through all modes of destinations. To build the community through education and involvement.

I think that we have a well-demonstrated problem in the primary core of Anchorage with pedestrians being— and cyclists being struck by cars. And I think this provides them an alternative route that is safe and off the roads. I think that they did a lot of care to not impact the estuary as much as possible.

The proposed project, you know, complies with the area-wide trail plan of 1997, the AMATS non-motorized plan of 2021, that the recommended bicycle network on page 61 shows the Fish Creek Trail connection as a study corridor shared use, Anchorage Bicycle Plan 2010, the Fish Creek Trail connection is a proposed separated multi-use pathway in the proposed bicycle network, and it's supported by the Anchorage Pedestrian Plan, which identifies the Coastal Trail connection as a missing link.

Are there any other commissioners wishing to speak to the motion?

It looks like there's no further discussion. May we have a vote on case 2026-0047?

Ms. Danello, how do you vote?

I vote in favor of the motion.

Thank you.

So Case 2026-0047 passed with a vote of 6 in favor and 0 against.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to the next case on our agenda tonight. With respect to Case 2026-0051, the petitioner is requesting project review for the Glenn Highway and Highland Road interchange improvements. May we please have staff's presentation?

Thank you, Madam Chair. The State of Alaska is seeking a review of the 65% plans in hand review for the Glen Highway and Highland Road interchange improvements in compliance with AMC 21.03.190(b) and the Context Sensitive Solution Transportation Project Review Process. The Planning Department has not received public or community council comments as of this writing. Reviewing agent's comments are available in Attachment 2, page 214, in the original format met in your staff report, there were no objections, but only AWWU requesting coordination during design. They diverge about optimized traffic flow by mitigating westbound left turn queues towards the existing bridge and enhancing the southbound entrance ramp capacity.

The project team updated the design for the pedestrian pathway after they received comments on it to be a center-running multi— multi-use pathway on the bridge for non-motorized traffic, separated by concrete barriers. This configuration reduced lane crossing from 8 to 6 and shortened the walking distance to the Glen Highway pathway. The parking ride is also part of the project design. The central island and surrounding embankment will feature native, low-maintenance landscaping. The design also specifically accounts for local freight needs, including adjusted truck aprons for the heavy vehicles serving the Anchorage Regional Landfill.

The department recommends approval, approval for the case 2026-0051, subject to conditions shown on page 6 in the staff report. The project team here to present their case. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions of staff?

I have a question. Um, in the packet it says, uh, that planning and zoning had conditions. What were those conditions?

Are you talking the condition number 2? It says the design study report, so the Planning and Zoning subsequently reviewed and approved the DESR with conditions on August 11th, but it didn't— I didn't— I couldn't find what those were. Would you mind to tell me which page? It's on page 2 of our packet under item I, compliance with this title.

Oh, we do have the conditions. Organize them.

There's another comment on page 20 of our packet under 2.0. It kind of says the same thing. That Planning and Zoning reviewed, approved, and provided conditions of approval.

Ah, okay, thank you.

Okay, can you hear me? Okay, perfect. All right, uh, so I pulled up the case, uh, the case history. So, um, this went to the Planning and Zoning Commission on August 11th, 2025, so that would be the, the DSR DSR, or the Design Study Report phase. Uh, and then at the subsequent meeting in September, they passed their resolution.

So the conditions of approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission, it says that the alternative should be substantially in compliance with the plans they submitted to the department, to that the, the design meet street and intersection lighting standards. That are in Chapter 8 of Title 21 and Chapter 5 of the Design Criteria Manual, and then also that they, um, provide information regarding conformance with the Anchorage Stormwater Manual. Uh, so we, we felt those conditions were met or, or, uh, would be met as they're pulling, uh, like, construction permits. So we, we did not carry any of those conditions forward or felt that they are out of compliance with that review. Thank you.

Okay, um, will the petitioner please come forward? Please state and spell your name for the record.

Good evening. My name is Galen Jones, G-A-L-E-N, with Alaska Department of Transportation. Um, you will have 10 minutes to present. Would you like to reserve any of your time for rebuttal? Uh, yeah, just if I have any left at the end.

Thank you. I might use the whole thing.

You should be able to do a look left and right. Perfect. Thank you.

All right. Hello, everybody. As I said, my name is Galen Jones. I'm with Alaska DOT. I'm here with Kelly Kilpatrick, who's with Dow Engineers, who was hired to do the design for the department.

We're here to talk about the Glenn Highway and Highland Road interchange north of Anchorage and Eagle River.

And just wanted to say thank you for having us and for taking the time to review our packets. So we'll start with the project area. This interchange was built in the 1970s, and originally it only accommodated Highland Road. That's why it's called the Glen Highland Interchange, even though it does intersect with Eagle River Loop Road. Um, the— when Eagle River Loop Road was tied in in the early 2000s, the interchange was never expanded to accommodate the additional demand from that roadway.

So here we are 20 years later, and there's a noticeable issue of queuing for the morning commute peak, which is 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM in that westbound to southbound direction. We got some stakeholders in the area, most notably the landfill to the west side, and then we have a park-and-ride up in the northeast corner. There's the Glenn Highway Trail on the west side, and then Eagle River High School nearby over on the east side.

The main purpose of the project is we want to improve operations. Specifically, there's low or poor lane utilization in that westbound movement on Eagle River Loop Road. Everybody stacks up in the inside lane because they know they have to turn left to go southbound into Anchorage because there's only one lane. On the on-ramp.

Improving operations will improve capacity and make it so people don't have to wait 15, 20, sometimes 30 minutes in the morning. That queue will back up sometimes a couple miles or up to the Briggs Bridge. We also want to use this opportunity to improve safety for non-motorized users and motorized users. Although there's not a recorded pattern of serious or fatal crashes in the area, but it's still always a great opportunity to.

Improve safety.

While we're here, we also want to preserve the bridge that is existing. And we're not going to replace the bridge at this time. We also want to enhance that merging that goes southbound onto the Glenn Highway. So this picture shows really the big problem. Everybody stacks up in that inside lane.

We've got a lot of queuing. And really the only way that the other roads in the area— so VFW Road, the other ramps— can get across that big queue in the morning is by courtesy gaps. That's not really the way roads are supposed to operate. They pose safety issues. And so we analyzed alternatives that would really solve that issue.

So some constraints for alternatives— I already mentioned we want to keep that bridge in place. It's got another 25 years at least left in the design life for it, the 75-year design life. Increase that lane utilization for that morning commute. And then we want to maintain access or meet the needs of the landfill. And we need to make sure that overheight vehicles can get up and over the— through the interchange when they're too tall to go under the bridge.

We also want to make sure our design accommodates a future bridge replacement and doesn't have to rebuild our current design.

So the divergeabout is our preferred alternative, which is really a diverging diamond interchange like you see at Glen Muldoon, except for signalized intersections, we have roundabouts at each end. And really what this does is it comprehensively improves movements on both sides of the interchange. And it works well with the existing bridge. But as— if you're familiar with diverging diamond interchanges, they put the traffic the opposite side of the bridge. So because there's such a heavy westbound to southbound movement, so that left turn— this is really a perfect solution for that type of movement.

So the orange line, it shows two lanes going through the roundabout, and then they turn left, they avoid the west roundabout and can go directly south onto the Glenn Highway. But it also increases the priority for all the other movements wanting to get on the bridge. In addition, it improves safety for non-motorized users by adding pedestrian refuge at crossings And it actually reduces the number of single-lane crossings for non-motorized users and provides a shorter route.

Unfortunately, it does require a little bit of acquisition needed from the landfill. But DOT donated that property back when the interchange was first built. So our preliminary conversations with MOA shows that a willingness to donate that property back. Just a small portion of it.

So we already discussed a little bit how the Glenn Highway trails on the southwest corner, and then on the northeast side is the main route to Eagle River along VFW Road. And then you have the park and ride at the northeast corner. A lot of people go and they park there and then they will get on their bikes and go into Anchorage, whether that's to commute for work or just for recreation. There's also the high school to the east. So non-motorized facilities— there's a gap in the non-motorized network.

Really, the— what's available now is just a paved shoulder. So between Wolf Den Drive and the interchange is only a paved shoulder is available for non-motorized users. And so we're proposing to add a 10-foot-wide sidewalk between VFW Road and Wolf Den Drive.

So our original design that was in your packet included follow the pedestrian route following the north side of the bridge where it is currently, and then routing around the northwest, uh, and then south to connect to the Glen Highway Trail. So we got some feedback during, uh, our milestone review to ask if we could somehow reduce crossings and make a more direct route through the interchange for non-motorized users.

So in response to that, we decided to put the trail shared use path down the middle of the bridge. As you can see in the cross section, there is concrete barrier with pedestrian railing on top of it. And we've worked with our maintenance groups to maximize the area for snow removal. So, you know, we got a narrow bridge. It's not an ideal situation for maintenance, but because we're not replacing the bridge, this is the best we could do.

And so we've reduced that crossing distance by 400 feet and reduced the single lane crossings from the previous proposal to 8 crossings down to 6.

There is a transit stop currently for PeopleMover on the east side of the interchange. And so we've been working closely with them. We've had multiple meetings. They've asked for amenities such as, you know, a shelter, trash can, bench, pedestrian-scale lighting. So we're going to install all that for them.

And then we're moving the bus stop up onto VFW Road. And our plan is to have the least amount of impacts to the park-and-ride. But people will still be able to park there. There will still be roughly the same amount of spots. And it will be still a great way to access the bus stop and the Glen Highway Trail.

This is just to show that we have considered oversized vehicles. The orange route is how vehicle— overheight vehicles will get through the interchange. So we're doing a thicker concrete route through there for them. They can, um, but they'll have to be permitted. Sometimes they'll have to remove a sign, but we're making sure that there is a clear path for them to get through.

But it'll be up and over curb and gutter, things like that, so it won't be accessible by normal vehicles. The blue line just shows the design vehicle for the landfill, which is a standard semi-vehicle, a WB67, and just to show a typical route through the interchange. And it will be able to accommodate full-size vehicles in any movement.

There will be some coordination with the landfill to move their gate slightly to the west. So we're working closely with them on that and slightly realign their internal access. So have really great coordination with them. Everybody's on the same page and looking forward to these improvements. They are— they already have a project going on to make some improvements.

So everything's looking good. So we do have a landscaping— a 65% landscaping design. It'll be similar to the Muldoon interchange, but Because it's roundabout, there are a lot more sight lines that we have to consider. So landscaping the central medians in the center of the roundabouts, and then in the larger grassed areas. The red represents patterned concrete.

The green would be grass or wildflower mix. And then you can see different shrubs or trees throughout.

Here's a cross-section of the design of one of the roundabouts. So this is just our general planting scheme. Some larger trees in the middle to block sight distance across. We want people to be focused to the vehicles on their left, and then any non-motorized users crossing to the right or to the left. So don't want people necessarily looking to cross.

It'll also block vehicles from driving across the roundabouts as well.

Our trees were— and plantings were specifically chosen to not be attractive for moose, and then also to be little to no maintenance at all, because we all know maintenance budgets are really low. Here's the schedule. We're at the red dashed line, the vertical dashed line. We plan to go to obligate funding in the fall. Of this year and go to construction in 2027.

We anticipate 1 to 2 year construction, and we just went through our, our last round of community council presentations. With that, um, I'm finished with my presentation. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Are there any questions of the petitioner?

Commissioner Straight.

Hi, thanks for coming and presenting today.

I've got a couple questions I wanted to go through. First of all, I really like the new pedestrian route. I think it makes makes a lot of sense. I like that we've reduced the number of crossings, which is pretty critical, and readjusted some of them so that I think you'll have— the vehicles will have better sight distance on those crossings. So I think that's really good.

Um, do you anticipate any issues kind of reallocating the width on the bridge, like removing the existing sidewalk And adding the, the two sets of barriers now instead of one for drainage. And I guess another potential component would be assuming that the, uh, the existing bridge is really at 2%, is there any way to potentially make that pedestrian route meet ADA if it has potentially gone over 2%? Things like that.

Sorry, I know I threw a lot of you there at once. Uh, yeah, through the chair, uh, thank you for the questions, Commissioner Straight. So, uh, I'll address these as I remember them, and maybe you'll have to remind me of a few of them. But, um, so the crown, uh, it could potentially be— basically, we're stripping the bridge all the way down, we are putting a new waterproofing membrane on, and then we're going to build it back up through the— from the girders all the way back up to the top of the asphalt. So we do have an opportunity to make sure that that crown is at ADA 2%.

So it, it for sure will be. Regarding, um, the.

Drainage. So the bridge is actually on a crest, vertical curve. So if you look at the bridge, you know, as you be driving down the Glenn Highway, it does drain to both sides. So there's a high point in the middle. So the water will drain down the edge of the— looks like the left side or the north side of those barriers because we're looking east in that cross-section.

And then it will be on either side of the bridge will be inlets for for that water to be caught, and then we'll go out to sediment basins, retention basins, to comply with the MS4. Now, did I miss any of those? No, I think that answers all those questions. Okay, thank you.

The southbound ramp onto the highway, onto the Glenn Highway, When it starts out as a 2-lane entrance, right, and then when it connects to the highway, you end up being 5 lanes across plus shoulder, median, and— sorry, median shoulder and an outside shoulder. So depending on where the crown of Glenn Highway is, you might be having to drain up to 72 feet. Cross slope across the entire width. Have you guys looked at potentially adding some cross slope to those ramp lanes as you tie into the highway to potentially improve cross slope drainage there?

So just to clarify, through the chair, Commissioner Strait, to clarify something that wasn't really detailed out in the presentation, I'm glad you brought this up. Because it gives me an opportunity to talk about how we are carrying 2 lanes down onto the southbound on-ramp lanes onto the Glenn Highway. And the reason for that is 'cause we want to promote that lane utilization as best as possible. If it drops off into 1 lane too soon, folks will just all stack up at the left lane and we'll be exactly where we're at today. So we will have 2 lanes similar to the Glenn Muldoon interchange as you're headed northbound to get onto the Glenn Highway from Muldoon.

There are 2 lanes and they drop off 1 at a time. So there will be an added lane, like you said, additional pavement that the drainage will have to cross over the sheet flow.

However, we don't have any concerns with just adding that 12 feet. There's— in addition, the road is curving at that point, so that's super elevated. And so most of those, those lanes will be all draining to the west side. I will say though that the Glenn Highway is crowned right now, so not Each direction of the Glenn Highway is crowned, just to clarify. So right now there is a crown, I think, between the second or, um, second or first or second lane on the southbound direction.

So not all the lanes on the tangents sections of the roadway are fully draining over there. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks. That—. Thank you, that works.

Um, looking through the plans, it looks like there's, uh In regards mostly to that southbound ramp, there's an existing controlled access line that you're going to be going across in a couple locations. Is that something you're going to have to deal with FHWA about, or—. Yeah, through the chair, thank you for the question, Commissioner Straight. So on the west side, the, the controlled access lines, we will have to make a slight modification to one of the controlled access lines, but it should be fairly easy to make that update with FHWA because we're not breaking— we're not adding a break in the controlled access line. It just has to get— it's actually just the one on the north.

The one on the south is okay, uh, south of Eagle River Loop Road on the west side of the interchange. But the one to the north, we're gonna have to trim that one just a little bit back. Um, but like I said, because we're not adding a new break in it, it should be a fairly simple process. Okay. Yeah, I've, I've never gone through that process before of modifying an existing one, so yeah.

Um, Okay, another location, southbound on VFW. If you're— it's going to be hard to describe this since there's not a set of plans in front of you, but southbound on VFW, there is two approach lanes to the roundabout. Is there really enough traffic at that location to warrant two approach lanes there? Through the chair, Commissioner Strait, thanks for the question. I— you— we maybe had to— so in our plans in hand review packet that you received, there were two lanes, but since then, based on comments, we have reduced that to one lane.

So if you look at this drawing and then any of the other drawings in the presentation, we've dropped that down to one southbound entrance lane to the roundabout. Okay, so the— just some background, we had two lanes there because there are two receiving lanes in the roundabout And we looked more closely into that and had a roundabout peer review and spoke with some national roundabout experts and figured out that we can just have one entrance lane that goes into the roundabout there. And having two lanes would have required additional pedestrian signalization. And to directly answer your question, no, the volumes did not warrant having two lanes. So we didn't want to have those two lanes if we didn't need to.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think that makes sense. I think it's a benefit. You'll have less width for pedestrians to cross there as well. Um, at that same location, um, for southbound VFW, if they were to make— and it looks like maybe this has already changed based on that image up there, that figure up there— but it looks like in the plans that we had for plans in hand that it was a really sharp turn if you were to try to get northbound on the Glen.

From there. And it looks like maybe that has been smoothed out a little bit. That was my other comment on this location, is potentially smooth out that corner, but it looks like you may have already done that.

Um, I, I guess, uh, for the, for the divergeabout, um, this is the first one that I've seen, so I'm very curious how the public is going to take it. Just sitting down and looking at plans, I myself got lost a couple times on which traffic was going which way down some of these roundabout legs.

I feel like it's probably going to be a lot easier to drive than it is to look from a— bird's eye view and try to figure out what's going on. However, I— is there potential to maybe add, um, any like wrong-way signs? I know we try not to oversign things, but potentially look at adding some wrong-way signs on maybe some of the more critical legs where you really don't want traffic going down that direction.

Yeah, through the chair, thank you, Commissioner Strait, for the question. Um, you took Part of my response right out of my mouth. So when you look at it from overhead, it looks very confusing and convoluted. But when you're in a vehicle, you're going to be channelized by landscaping. We're going to have overhead signage.

We're going to have stripes on the pavement. So it should be fairly intuitive. For example, if you're headed west here, and you're looking at this from above, you're like, ah, I got to get on the other side of the bridge. But really, you're just taking a left out of the roundabout. So we're going to have signage leading into the roundabout, the big green signs that show the roundabout, and then the direction.

The destination and the arrows. Like I said, overhead signage. In regards to wrong-way signage, uh, that's a— I think it's a great idea, and we'll make sure that we put in the appropriate wrong-way signage. Um, really, uh, yeah, and we'll look closely at really the ones that would be more high consequence, because everybody's going to be going pretty slow through here. You got two roundabouts, um, so that every they're designed with geometry to purposely slow you down.

Any high consequence movements would be going a wrong way on a ramp, so we will definitely have wrong way signage on those ramps. Yeah, and then we'll look at other appropriate areas as well. Yeah, that seems like a reasonable solution. Yeah, I'm excited to drive this after it's constructed and see what it looks like. I At least in my mind, one of the benefits of a DDI is that there's very few decisions that the driver has to make, which is a benefit to the interchange.

And I feel like with the roundabouts, there's going to be more decisions for the drivers to make here. But you've obviously focused on allowing traffic on the most highly utilized routes through the through the interchange, which I think will be a big benefit.

I guess my last remaining question for now is in regard to construction and what kind of temporary traffic control and impacts you're anticipating during construction.

Yeah, through the Chair, Commissioner Straight. That's a great question. We are just getting into the construction phasing right now. We just had a meeting with our construction project manager and other staff that does the traffic control inspections throughout construction. So we anticipate a couple different phases throughout construction to shift traffic around to different areas.

We plan to make the westbound movement on the bridge a single lane, always open throughout the duration of the project, because the other option is to route everybody up to Artillery, which has a lot of its own problems that were, were in the.

Process of solving right now. So we want to keep that lane open. Some other areas, movements might get closed. Folks might have to detour up to Artillery, but they're the minor movements. We're only seeing a couple hundred vehicles a day on those movements.

Or perhaps they'd have to go down to, um, I think it's D Street. It's one of the military base entrances. But folks will be able to access the landfill from Anchorage cross that bridge because that's that westbound movement, and then they'll be able to depart the landfill to go back to Anchorage. So that's the heaviest movement and one of the other really important things. Folks will be able to get to and from the school, um, not necessarily that folks outside of Eagle River are going to the school a lot, but, um, yeah, so that's something we've, uh, traffic control is going to be a major consideration for this project, and we, we intend to keep those busy movements open.

Thanks. That's all I've got for now. Yeah, thank you.

I have a couple, but Commissioner Straight did a great job. I was peeling off Post-its that I had flagged, so that's really helpful. If you could please go to your slide presentation, that was one of the landscaping that had the overview kind of— yes, this one.

I too, the bird's eye view makes things a little bit like, whoa. So I've got little arrows drawn all over my schematic. But this Glenn Highway southbound exit coming in, and then you have this loop here, you have this coming in, and I kind of have similar questions like what would prevent somebody coming in? Like let's say they didn't plan, we all know that drivers sometimes do weird things, and they don't take that— the correct turn that would send them to the east, and they find themselves in the West Glen Highway southbound exit ramp. So now they're in this roundabout, like, and I have the similar concerns.

What would prevent them from using that roundabout, coming around, and then entering the— since the, the eastbound traffic is going to go here and you're going to have your westbound traffic here, what prevents them from coming around that loop and heading into the wrong-way traffic coming down that way, or deciding to like U-turn from the southbound exit ramp into divergeabout to head that way. That there's like a little piece right there that I have a little— I'm like, how does that little piece work?

I kind of want to give you the laser pointer because I'm sorry, I didn't really follow any of that. But, um, I will say if somebody goes the wrong way in here, it wouldn't be the first time somebody went the wrong way in a roundabout. But we do want to prevent that as much as possible, especially going the wrong way down a ramp. So, um, I'll just maybe trace these. So westbound to Anchorage through here, boom, to the landfill through there.

From the landfill, they can go north, or they can go here, um, they go left. Um, let— should we try again? Yeah, so like if you're in, you your Glen Highway southbound exit. So that—. Is that this?

No, it's the other one. This one? Yep. So what they come in that way, and now they— that's what they should do. Yeah, but they do— they take a U-turn there, they go this way, and then they go that way.

Or even worse, because at least if they go that way, they're going the right direction. Correct. They do that little bit, they sneak through, and now they're going the wrong—. If they go this way. Yes.

Yeah, that would be bad. Um, you know, it People are going slow. Like, it's not— it wouldn't— it shouldn't be like a fatal accident. However, you could ask that question about any roundabout. So signage, striping, people know how to do roundabouts.

I know this Eagle River doesn't have any roundabouts, but we've had roundabouts in Alaska for 30 years now. So that— well, it wouldn't be good. We will have signage and we will do everything possible to prevent this movement. But luckily, it shouldn't be a fatal or serious injury crash. 'Cause people should be going like 25, probably, miles per hour through there.

They're just coming out of the roundabout, maybe 30. Yep, okay, that was just my— I was like, you've got this loop next to a loop and people—. And that's fair. I mean, these are fair questions. But just, I think as they're approaching this through here, they can't really see over here necessarily.

It's a distance a ways and they're gonna be already having momentum to go this way. So hopefully all the measures that we'll take, traffic control measures, will guide them in the right way. Kind of the same thing with the DDI. Looking at it from above, you're like, oh, but once you're in it, it's fine. And then my other question is, what volumes of heavy truck traffic are you expecting kind of on the bridge or use the bridge now?

And then because we're going to be putting pedestrians down the middle, and I saw that you intend to barrier, which is great. What's the height of the barrier? And have anybody expressed concerns about, you know, debris or something if they're walking in that space? And how might that be mitigated if this is the route that trucks going to the landfill might be using?

Yeah, thank you for the question. So the barrier is roughly 36 inches tall. In addition, it will have a short section, probably another 1 to 2 feet of railing mounted on top of the barrier. As far as any debris falling off of vehicles, we don't have— if it were to fall from above, we don't have any special protections for that. But the distance between the barrier and a pedestrian would be, you know, if they were hugging the edge of the barrier, is roughly 3, 3.5 to 4 feet.

Again, it's not ideal because we're working with the existing bridge cross-section. So we could make that railing as tall as we wanted, really, but I would worry about any sort of— like, unless we did a full cage or whatever, which, you know, maintenance intensive and things like that, that could be an issue. In addition, those sort of things collect ice and snow, and there have been incidences where things overhang a pathway, they have actually fallen and injured pedestrians. So I'd be concerned about that as well. And I mean, ice and snow have fallen and injured pedestrians as well.

Open to suggestions on, on that. I appreciate that, like, using this pathing reduces the number of crossings because that's certainly a lot more dangerous for pedestrian. But know that, like, from the C Street bridges, that people feel sometimes uncomfortable with heavy truck traffic next to them on a bridge. They're going, you know, over heavy traffic and then heavy traffic next to them. Potentially it can be a little uncomfortable.

May I respond? Oh, please. Yeah, um, so a couple— and I've heard that as well about that C Street Bridge. Uh, I'd say a couple differences here. A vehicle should be going much slower on this, and I don't— is that a narrower sidewalk on the C Street Bridge than this 8-foot?

I believe so. Maybe that will help them have a little bit more separation as well. And those truck— trucks aren't— it's, it's primarily the trucks going to the landfill, and those are really heavy in the morning and then a couple times throughout the day, but not, um, on weekends or later than business hours. So that should help during those other times people can recreate. I mean, they should be able to at all times, but it's not all day.

Commissioner Sullivan.

Hi, through the chair, um, I just have a question. I'm not a civil engineer, maybe my peers here can answer too. So on the east roundabout, the single one, I'm just looking how much it changes in width as you come in and out. And would that dangerous? And why is not maintaining the same width?

Uh, I feel that as a driver, I'm always like bouncing around in these things, and I'm now trying to see how am I going to go from a 20-foot to a 15-foot. And then, you know, there's too many changes in width. Why is not consistent?

Yeah, through the chair, Commissioner Sullivan, so if I could ask some clarifying questions. Are you referring to over here and then how the lanes are changing width as you head through? Yes, so you're coming from 20-foot wide and then it's going to 2 lanes of 15-foot if you continue going around. So it's typical lane widths in a roundabout are 20 feet from curb to curb and 16 feet usually painted area. And then if you have—.

That's for a single lane. And then if you have two lanes, it's usually 12 to 16 feet. But because you're turning, your vehicle takes up a little bit wider space. So that's why we have the lanes a little bit wider in a roundabout. And I will say, this is designed consistent with every other roundabout.

There's a national guide that dictates lane widths throughout roundabouts. And so this is consistent with that. And then typically, we have wider lanes coming in as well, because these roadways are turning and we don't have shoulders. The shoulders drop off here to channelize vehicles and slow them down. So we do want narrower lanes headed in to slow vehicles down.

And then because this is turning, the lanes are a little bit wider to account for large trucks as, as they off-track and have a wider footprint. And then because we're constrained on the bridge, we had narrow lanes. Now If we wanted to make things consistent, we would have to have these narrow lanes through everything, and then we'd see a lot more sideswipes and, you know, property damage only type fender bender crashes throughout the turning areas of the roundabout. So I hope that provides some explanation. And the design group doesn't have any concerns about confusion for vehicles headed through the roundabout and then on the bridge or before the roundabout.

And like I said, it It pretty much matches standard designs for lane widths in, through, and coming out of roundabouts. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Strait. Yeah, another question on the pedestrian access over the bridge.

I guess, snow removal look like in that type of situation? Yeah, through the chair, Commissioner Straight, thanks for the question. Snow removal is not going to be as good as if we were able to rebuild this bridge and rebuild it with wide shoulders, wider side, wider shared use pathway in the middle. So we did the best with what we could with the narrow cross-section. Snow removal, we have worked closely with our maintenance and operations group What we did was we, we actually widened the shoulders on the north side of the bridge.

So the— if you notice, these shoulders are a little bit wider, 2.7 feet. It's kind of a weird number, makes my skin crawl a little bit as an engineer to see the 2.7, but, uh, and then the other side is only 2 feet. Now that's because we try to make this as wide as possible because we know our minimum plow blade widths and things like that. So we also talked about this area, which here is the sidewalk is kind of narrow, but they're going to have to use one of the special type of, you know, snow blower with the, with the rototiller pieces of equipment, and they could take two passes down and back. So they park at one end with their equipment and then they go down and back.

But so it's not ideal, but it's doable. And, uh, you know, they'll have to haul away the snow, uh, as much as possible. So if there's a big event, lanes might get a little bit more narrow you know, huge event, snowpocalypse type, there maybe this will kind of drop down to one lane for a short amount of time. But it does match the existing lane widths and shoulders that are on the bridge now. And the reason we were able to fit additional barrier in was unfortunately we did narrow the path existing on the north side of the bridge.

It's slightly wider, so we robbed a little bit of that width from the path over there to put on in the extra barrier. So I, I guess I'm not as concerned with the lanes. I think that's something M&O is fairly comfortable with dealing, just carrying the snow through over the bridge. I guess my main concern would be with the, the sidewalk in the middle being only 8-foot wide. If you've got some kind of snowblower or something like that to run down there, you're not really going to be able to carry it through the bridge like you would with a grader or a plow.

So I guess, um, it might be worth, if you haven't already, chatting with them about how that's going to look and what their operations are going to look like for maintaining that. That's a great point, and I actually misspoke. They did talk about having to run— making sure it was wide enough to run a standard plow blade through so they could push it. And then we actually did speak with them about snow storage areas. We've had a lot of conversations with them, and so I'm glad you mentioned that because that jogged my memory.

We did make sure that there is snow storage here so they'd actually push through, drop snow there, and then if they need to do a second pass, push snow and then have a little bit of snow storage in the middle there.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thank you.

Are there any other questions for the petitioner?

Okay. We'll now open the hearing to public testimony. Is there anyone wishing to testify?

I'm not seeing anybody.

Would the petitioner like to use their remaining 15 seconds for rebuttal?

No, but I will use it to just thank everybody again for your time. Thank you.

Are there any more questions from the commission for the staff?

Not seeing any. The public hearing is now closed. The matter now rests with the body. We will move and vote. May we have a motion to approve case 2026-0051?

It's been moved by Commissioner Straight. Mover, would you please state your motion? I move in case 2026-0051 to approve the context-sensitive solutions transportation project review plans in hand for the Glen Highway and Highland Road interchange improvements, subject to the conditions shown on page 6 the staff report. Thank you. It's been seconded by Commissioner Lennig.

Commissioner Straight, would you please speak to your motion?

Yes, um, I intend to, uh, support, um, this motion, um, uh, following the recommendation of the staff packet, and I'd like to enter some findings. Um, there are several items that we need to review as a commission and compare them against the, the projects before us. And so I'd like to go through those. For item number 1, compliance with this title, the Planning and Zoning Commission heard the concept report as an informational item and received no public comments. P&Z— PZC subsequently reviewed and approved the design study report with conditions on August 11th, 2025.

The plans in hand review is the final phase of the CSS review, with the municipality. Preferred alternative meets the design and review requirements of Title 21. For item number 2, context of the area and the long-term impact on existing and projected adjacent land uses. Glenn Highway and Highland Road interchange connects the Anchorage Bowl with Chugach Eagle River community. The surrounding area includes industrial, institutional, and residential traffic.

It is bordered by JBear, Anchorage Regional Landfill, Highland Mountain Correctional Center, and local schools. The divergeabout configuration improves operational capacity while maintaining existing access points for the landfill and JBear. 65% Plans in hand design remains substantially consistent with 35% plans in the design study report approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission on August 11th, 2025. To satisfy all the approval conditions, the project team is finalizing a stormwater memorandum to document compliance with the Anchorage Stormwater Manual. Additionally, the design prioritizes DOT and PF lighting policies while ensuring all municipal lighting adjustments meet AMC 21.08.050.1.2 standards.

These refinements provide a safe illumination profile and enhanced non-motorized connectivity between the residential core and the regional trail system. Additionally, in response to comments from PCC and others, the project team updated the non-motorized pathway alignment to include shorter distances and fewer crossings. For item number 3, initial costs of materials including installation, the project carries an estimated total cost of approximately $21 million for construction and utilities. Specifically, drainage accounts for $0.6 million. Lighting improvements requires $1.5 million.

Utility relocation costs $1.1 million. Signage totals approximate $800,000, with $460,000 of that amount specifically covering overhead signs and structures. Future funding obligations depend on the project's inclusion in subsequent AMATS TIP. State and federal sources currently fund the design phase, with DOT and PF seeking construction federal funding through the addition of amendment by AMATS. Transportation.

Improvement Plan and the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The approved alternative utilizes durable, low-maintenance landscaping such as crushed aggregate, hardy vegetation. This preferred alternative offers the highest level of cost-effectiveness and a safe— and safety compared to other studied options and remains compatible with future long-term bridge replacement goals. Item number 4, long-term costs associated with operation and maintenance. Maintenance responsibilities for the interchange will remain with State of Alaska and DOT and PF.

Winter maintenance for VFW Road continues to be the MOA transfer of responsibilities agreement. While Solid Waste Services currently maintains the existing park and ride, the project seeks to formalize a long-term maintenance agreement with the MOA. MOA approval for the project seeks to formalize I already heard that. MOA approval for park and ride improvements is contingent upon perpetual maintenance commitment. Excluding the Glenn Highway, DOT MPF estimates the maintenance costs between $12,600 and $14,000 per lane mile.

For Item 5, adherence to design theme established through local area plans or prior public improvements, the application describes conformance With Municipal Plans and Table 1 in the packet summarizes the department's overview of the guiding documents. Table number 1 identifies compliance with AMATS Transportation Improvement Program, the 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan 2024 as amended in 2026, the Long Range Transportation Strategy 2025, AMATS Non-Motorized Plan 2021, AMATS Glen Highway Integrated Corridor Management Study from March 2019, the Official Streets and Highways Plan 2014, and the Chugach Eagle River Comprehensive Plan update of 2006. For item number 6, Effectiveness in Meeting Community Design Goals, direct feedback from stakeholders and public spurred an update to the preferred alternative The diverging diamond interchange with roundabouts. The application also includes documentation of several meetings with stakeholders and the general public, as well as comments submitted to the project team. For Item 7, Accommodation of Pedestrians and Non-Motorized Users, the diverging diamond interchange with roundabouts will improve pedestrian safety and access by incorporating traffic barriers between lanes on the existing bridge.

Project team transitioned from the initial northside-only pathway to a center-running, non-motorized alignment. The revised route reduces the number of required crossings from 8 to 6 and shortens the walking distance between the Park and Ride and the Glen Highway pathway by 400 feet. Since this change was made after receiving the feedback during the public process, the new pathway alignment is not in the plans in hand that were submitted with the original application but are included in our packet.

The design utilizes a roundabout to promote slower vehicle speeds and incorporates splitter islands as pedestrian refuges, allowing users to cross only one direction of traffic at a time. The project includes specialized wayfinding and high-level illumination for winter months and dark hours. Those are my findings. I, I also appreciate, uh, the project team and, and the design that they put together. I It's obviously a very creative design that we haven't seen before, at least in Alaska.

I'm very excited to be able to drive this at some point. I— again, there's a whole lot of kind of restrictions with right-of-way and tying into the existing bridge and interfacing with the highway that I recognize are a challenge to meet your design goals while trying to limit impacts. Around the project. So I commend the project team for the design that they've come up with along with, I guess, modifying the pedestrian pathway to reduce the number of crossings.

Thank you. Commissioner Lennig, would you like to speak to your second? Sure. It's tough to follow up with Trevor's findings because he was very comprehensive and covered everything very well. Including the praise for the project packet.

I really appreciate the presentation that you guys put together. This is a pretty fascinating design. When I first looked at this, I had to look at it several times. As we've talked about a couple times, kind of the bird's eye view is—. Wow.

It would be a really cool Hot Wheels track, just saying. But it's pretty cool to see this being introduced here. I think it really solves a problem in a really constrained area. Utilizing that existing bridge, and I'm excited to see how it performs. I know people were hesitant when that— when the diamond was introduced at Muldoon, and it seems to be functioning great.

And so I think the roundabout version of it will be pretty interesting to see. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other commissioners wishing to speak to the motion and/or add findings?

I'll speak to the motion. I intend to support it. I also agree with all the comments that have been made. It's a really thoughtful design, and I think it addresses a lot of the issues in the area. I'd like to particularly mention that it improves safety at both ramp intersections by substantially reducing the vehicle conflict points.

I think we've all mentioned the improved enhanced non-motorized safety by providing pedestrian refuges and single-lane crossing at each roundabout leg. Also, the reduced speed of a roundabout significantly reduces the potential severity of a crash if one does happen. It also enables transit to route through the interchange more efficiently due to the divergabouts reduced queues. And it's— I think it's wise when we can maintain existing infrastructure, and this is compatible with future bridge design and replacement when this bridge reaches its design life.

If there are no other commissioners wishing to speak to the motion, okay, there's no further discussion. May we have a vote on case 2026-0051? Miss Danello, how do you vote?

I vote in favor of the motion. Thank you.

Case 2026-0051 passed with 6 votes in favor and 0 against. Thank you for your presentation tonight.

We'll now move on to the agenda.

We don't have any appearance requests, reports, or commissioners' comments. Therefore, this concludes UDC's business for the evening. Um, can I ask if staff had any—. Yes, if I could provide a point of information. Uh, the assembly met last night and they, they did adopt the, um, the ordinance that would sunset the Urban Design Commission, so that That decision is official now.

So the May regularly scheduled meeting will be the final regular meeting of the Urban Design Commission. And then we would then plan to have a special meeting just probably around the lunch hour to adopt the final minutes and resolution from the case. And then from then on, the reviews would go to the Planning and Zoning Commission. But thank you, thank you so much for your time. I know it's a, it's a volunteer job, that's a, a commitment of your time to do things for your community.

And we did get feedback that your, your work and input is, is useful and had value, and it was is more of an efficiency decision. So thank you.

So just for clarification, is tonight our last meeting, or is May's the May one? Is there— there is one public hearing scheduled for a design variance for the May meeting.

Thank you.

Could we please get them in? I just feel that it's sad because I feel that the Urban Design Commission has a different vision and how they see things. So I think they are important for a community, but we cannot do anything.

Thank you. Thank you, Monica. Are there any other commissioners wishing to speak? Speak or make comment?

Could I please get a motion to adjourn?

It's been moved by Commissioner Lennig. It's been seconded by Commissioner Sullivan. Are there any objections?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Hearing, seeing none, this meeting is adjourned.

At 8:12 PM.

Thank you all. Have a good evening. Thanks, you too. Thank you, Allie.