A plan would move Anchorage's bike route off the highways onto trails

Anchorage's stretch of a cross-country bike route runs down the shoulders of the Seward and Glenn highways. Under a plan AMATS staff pitched to an advisory committee Thursday, it would move onto the city's trails instead — the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, the Ship Creek Trail, and the pathway along the Old Glenn Highway through Eagle River and Chugiak.

The change is only advisory. It wouldn't alter where cyclists can legally ride, including the Seward Highway shoulder toward Indian and Girdwood — it would just move the official designation of U.S. Bicycle Route 97 onto safer, quieter ground. National guidelines for the route system favor separated paths or roads carrying fewer than 1,000 vehicles a day, and routes that skirt cities rather than cut through them — a poor fit for the two highways. AMATS's non-motorized coordinator wrote in a memo that the current alignment "is not the most bike-friendly option."

The corridor means different things to different riders. Bike Anchorage is pushing for a separated bike-and-pedestrian path along the Seward Highway between Anchorage and Girdwood. Experienced long-distance cyclists, meanwhile, treat the highway shoulder as a workable route, describing long stretches of it on the Anchorage-to-Indian leg. Families are steered instead to the off-street trails — the ones the realignment would make official.

Route 97 was established in 2011 along Alaska Route 1. The state's active-transportation planner is preparing the application to the U.S. Bicycle Route System's managers, due Oct. 1.