Assembly overturns pedestrian-friendly city plan
Brazen effort to remake city for wider roads and big businesses
By Crystal Hutchens
A group of Anchorage citizens are up in arms because of recent changes made to the draft plan of the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) by the Anchorage City Council. Despite three years of effort and thirty meetings involved in creating the draft plan, the mandate to build town centers, wider sidewalks and other features that would promote diversity and vitality were written out of the plan during a meeting in November.
The public process developing the mandate to create a human-scale city has lasted over ten years, and includes the city’s Anchorage 2020 plan and the Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan.
Assembly Vice Chair Dan Coffey refers to the plan as “a flawed vision brought forward by a special interest group with an agenda” in a lengthy dissertation written in defense after the backlash.
Responding to claims that the Council acted against the public will, Dan Coffey was unapologetic. “I was elected by 43,000 people,” he said in an interview for this paper. “The Assembly is intended to be in the process.” Details are provided in the position paper Coffey wrote defending his actions. The paper cites many reasons for making alterations to the draft plan. He claims that “the Administration presented the Assembly with a flawed, politicized document that did not reflect the views of the vast majority of people in Anchorage.”
Carroll Stockard, an Anchorage area architect familiar with the way building codes are altering the development of the city, is skeptical of the power and legitimacy of the public planning process. “People who spend three years working on [a plan] don’t pass a law,” he said. “A big part of the story is how naive the people [were].”
Polarized visions of the Anchorage’s future
There is not much middle ground between the two sides. On one side are those who put their time and effort into the draft plan; on the other, those who made sweeping changes to the plan, without taking account of those involved in the planning process.
The Land Use Code, or Title 21, and its recent rewrite, are part of the Anchorage 2020, Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan, which was adopted in February of 2001. It was produced over a five year period through the collective efforts of many individual and community groups, and it governs the development of the Municipality of Anchorage, a 1,955 square mile area between Northern Prince William Sound and Upper Cook Inlet. Ten percent of the municipality is inhabited.
Former Mayor George Wuerch, in the introduction to the Anchorage 2020 plan, writes that it serves “as an inclusive process allowing interested citizens to work with Municipal staff and elected officials in making policy concerning the land use in the Anchorage Bowl,” and that it is a “guide for elected officials as they deliberate community development issues. This plan will help us to make Anchorage one of the most attractive cities in the world with safe, clean neighborhoods, a first class education system, and a wide variety of economic, cultural and recreational opportunities.”
In a written defense of his actions entitled “The Truth About the Long Range Transportation Plan,” Coffey claims that he acted responsibly. “I began talking and listening to people in the City Government, the State Government (traffic engineers, planners, financial people) and those in the private sector who were knowledgeable about transportation. I read additional materials submitted by various special interest groups. I read additional materials provided by staff. I read the Planning and Zoning Commission recommendations. When the Assembly held public hearings, I participated in those hearings. During the hearings I told people about my concerns (the north access into the U-Med District, the over-emphasis on transit and trails at the expense of roads, maintain the roads and trails we have, etc.). I asked questions of the participants in the public hearings on these issues. After the hearings, I conducted outreach to people and institutions that I knew would be impacted by my proposed amendments to the draft Plan. This included discussions with Providence Hospital, UAA and APU on the north access to the U-Med District. All three institutions supported my amendment to conduct a study to determine the best north access to the U-Med District. I spent more time reading more material and more time talking and listening to more people before I prepared the amendments that I submitted. Finally, I listened to my colleagues on the Assembly when the Administration and the individual Members presented their amendments. My votes on the amendments and the draft Plan reflect my studied opinion as to what is in the best interests of the City of Anchorage.”
Steve Cleary, Executive Director of AkPIRG (Alaska Public Interest Research Group) sent this reporter his statements presented at an AMATS (Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions) meeting on November 10. “In two evenings, the Anchorage Assembly negated the hard work that hundreds of Anchorage residents had put in, encompassing over thirty meetings in three years. The current politicization of the LRTP appears to hinge on whether roads should be the focus of the plan, or whether it should be more inclusive of other forms of transportation. It’s a false and unnecessary choice. Congestion costs money, time and increases dangerous pollution. Other modes of travel besides the car benefit those of us who choose those modes, but they also benefit car commuters because fewer cars on the road means less congestion. Therefore, an investment in public transit isn’t anti-car anymore than investment in roads is anti-bus or anti-bike. A balanced plan would ensure that commuters would have transportation choices. Unfortunately, the Assembly’s changes have removed that balance and I urge you to return to the original LRTP.
“Specifically, these changes should be made to the current LRTP:
- Remove the Bragaw Extension cutting through the University area.
- Restore Lake Otis and Tudor intersection improvements to the project list.
- Restore the south Coastal Trail to the project list.
- Develop a long term transit plan with dedicated funding for operations and maintenance based on the comprehensive plan land use goals.
- Hire a non-motorized transportation staff position.
- Add a discussion of cancer-causing benzene and volatile organic compounds to newly drafted Air Quality Chapter.
- Restore the policy to spend at least 15 percent of road construction dollars on enhancements.
“Many Anchorage residents participated in the forming of the LRTP and their input is critical to our community. Cynicism and apathy by average citizens is high already. If dedicated people spent countless hours trying to better their community and their input is discarded, then that distrust of the public process will only increase.”
Cleary also responded specifically to Dan Coffey’s position. “Mr. Coffey and other Assembly members unnecessarily politicized the transportation process. Of course they are part of the process, for which they were elected. In his remarks, Mr. Coffey appears to be hiding behind the term “special interests” with an anonymous letter. The truth is that hundreds of members of the public turned out to meetings for the past three years to participate in the formation of their community. To now say that their participation hijacked the process is cynical and dangerous to our democracy.”
According to Cleary, among the fifty amendments to the transportation plan made by the City Council was the removal of the term ‘visually appealing.’ “Did that not come out in three years of public meetings? It seems a notion so simple would have, unless the assembly invented it. In addition, one of the Assembly amendments passed Monday night and rescinded on Tuesday would have built a $110 million expressway linking Boniface with the airport, requiring the demolition of 70 houses and affecting 30 businesses. Even Assembly member Dick Traini changed his vote on the project when he learned that his family’s home is located within 50 feet of the new expressway. That’s why long range plans aren’t developed in two days.”
Coffey claims that he was acting in the best interest of the public. “The emphasis in the draft Plan on transit, on trails and on the walkability coupled with the anti-automobile rhetoric, all seemed to me to have little or nothing to do with the City as it exists today or as it will exist into the foreseeable future…While there are problems that are clearly caused by automobiles, we need to address those problems, not adopt a Long Range Transportation Plan that condemns the automobile.”
According to Cleary, we can accept the automobile as an essential part of city development without it being the only option. “Politicians at all levels blast our dependency on foreign oil. Yet none of them have been accused of being anti-oil. The same should be true about transit. The more choices and opportunities we have, the better our traffic will flow. Unfortunately, three years of long range planning by the Anchorage community was undone in two nights by a politicized assembly that only cares about the next election.”
Contact Crystal Hutchens at