Want Better Roads in Anchorage Speak Up
Appeared in the Voice of the Times on December 9, 1997

By Sen. Dave Donley

Nobody should support building new roads in Anchorage unless the roads are needed, but unless we as a community support needed road projects we have a traffic nightmare in our immediate future.

The majority of the public who support good roads (the same folks who overwhelmingly vote to approve municipal road bonds while rejecting most other bonds) need to begin participating in the transportation planning process.

Supporters of better roads for Anchorage need to organize and be vocal.

Despite repeated requests for public input, very few Anchorage residents ever comment on the municipality's Transportation Improvement Plan, the state's Transportation Improvement Plan, or the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Study program. When few people take the time to comment, the impact of anti-growth and anti-road advocates is much greater.

This past summer the Department of Transportation asked the public to "nominate" new transportation projects in the Anchorage area. Although any member of the public could do so, virtually no individual citizens from Anchorage did so -- except my office.

Once nominated, such ideas go on a list for evaluation. But if no one takes the time to nominate a project, it will not even be considered.

Anchorage has no advocacy group for improving Anchorage roads. In other major communities, the local chamber of commerce has a committee of some sort to advocate for transportation improvements. The Anchorage Chamber of Commerce has not had such a group.

These committees in other communities, especially in Fairbanks, have been very successful in convincing state government to spend transportation funds in their areas at Anchorage's loss.

This summer I asked the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce to form such a committee, and my request was still being considered as of November.

In the meantime, the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce has recently written a letter to the state demanding more road money for Fairbanks this year. Anyone who has driven in Fairbanks lately knows how excellent its road system is compared to Anchorage, and yet Fairbanks is fighting for more while Anchorage does almost nothing.

The last major road improvement push in Anchorage was the "Accelerated Roads Program" of the mid-1980s. Local groups, including businesses, unions, and builders formed the "ROADS" committee to lobby the state for road funds for Anchorage. The more than $200 million in extra state money they helped obtain made tremendous transportation system progress in Anchorage possible. Now, almost 15 years later, it is time to form such a group to work for Anchorage again.

Without such coordinated advocacy groups, Anchorage traffic problems will probably not receive the attention they need and will simply get worse and worse.

For years now, governors have simply continued the practice of allocating to Anchorage about $22 million of the $80 million in federal funds available to the state annually for community roads. Many government officials and members of the public believed that this was an amount established by some federal or state formula. Actually it was just an arbitrary decision by the governor. It is time Anchorage residents questioned the basis for such unfair and arbitrary funding decisions.

By educating ourselves as to how the system works and challenging the status quo, we can influence the political process on the local, state and federal levels to obtain fairer treatment for Anchorage.

Alaska's congressional delegation, the governor, the mayor, legislators and Assembly members all bear responsibility for Anchorage transportation needs. The public should hold them all accountable and put political pressure on all of them to obtain fair consideration of Anchorage's transportation needs.

All our elected public officials share in this responsibility, so no one level of government should be singled out. They all should be sent a clear message that Anchorage needs additional funds to address transportation needs and they all should be held accountable.

Those individual officials who do work for Anchorage's interests should be supported. It is easy to find something to disagree about with an elected official. Rarely do people agree on everything, but people should look to performance as a whole rather than isolated less-important single issues. If Anchorage voters don't support those elected officials who stick up for Anchorage they will have fewer and fewer who do so.

Anchorage's road system has fallen dangerously behind demand due to government budget reductions, complicated federal regulations, a lethargic bureaucracy, lack of public participation, a vocal anti-road element, and competition for limited funding from other Alaskan communities.

The people of Anchorage, through grass roots advocacy, can help their elected officials work to avoid a future traffic nightmare and improve Anchorage's transportation system in a balanced and community sensitive manner.

Dave Donley represents midtown Anchorage in the Alaska Senate. He is the Senate co-chair of the Anchorage Caucus.