Seward Highway rebuild, now estimated at $1.4 billion, returns to Anchorage's 2052 plan, 3-2

A Seward Highway rebuild now estimated at $1.4 billion is back in Anchorage's long-range transportation plan. The Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions Policy Committee, or AMATS, voted 3-2 Thursday, July 16, to include the Safer Seward Highway project, Milepost 98.5 to 118, in the 2052 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. The vote is a planning step, not final project approval: no decision is final until a finding of no significant impact is signed, department representative Lauren Little told the committee. Chair Katherine Keith, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation representative Morgan Frank and Public Works Director Kent Kohlhase voted yes; Assembly Members Erin Baldwin Day and Daniel Volland voted no. Keith is deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, which proposes the project; its commissioner or designee holds the AMATS chair.

The cost has more than doubled since the plan's last version. Volland told the committee the project was programmed at about $694 million in the 2024 MTP and is estimated at $1.4 billion in the draft Environmental Assessment. He said design work has already cost $16.5 million, with another $50 million expected for final design, and asked whether all of it is federally eligible. The project is described in source materials as requiring 24 to 25 years of construction at an annual budget of $65 million to $75 million. AMATS staff told the committee current fiscal assumptions did not contain enough funding for the portion of the project inside the metropolitan planning boundary, meaning the committee had to determine where that additional money would come from. Little, of DOT&PF, said the intent is to fully fund the project with federal funds, and that the department's financial plan was built to preserve a full program of other projects.

The project has moved on and off the plan before, including a Technical Advisory Committee recommendation to remove it in April 2025 and a Planning and Zoning Commission vote in September 2025 asking DOT&PF to revisit a three-lane option. The AMATS Community Advisory Committee submitted comments on February 10, 2026, recommending the draft Environmental Assessment not be approved, and has since asked the Policy Committee to reverse the inclusion vote. The draft Environmental Assessment public comment period ran from December 29, 2025, through February 27, 2026.

Baldwin Day said the department's 30-page response to comments from AMATS staff, the Technical Advisory Committee and the Policy Committee showed "more of a dismissal of concern" than reckoning with the substance. She questioned spending on a stretch that "does not even crack the top 30 most dangerous sections of road" on the National Highway System, and said every Anchorage district has a roadway with more crashes and deaths. Volland moved to postpone the item to the September meeting; that motion failed 2-3.

Kohlhase said the committee arrived at this point in large part because members of the public do not feel their comments were heard, and said he is encouraged by Commissioner Ryan Anderson's July 15 letter committing the department to a design-focused public meeting, separate from the environmental comment period. He asked that the state hold true to that commitment if the project is approved.

On whether a volume of opposition could move the preferred alternative, Little said the test is whether the purpose and need remain valid, and that the process is "not necessarily a public voting process, but it does need to be solidly defensible." She said draft responses to comments should be published in the fall or winter. She also said the design currently available is a four-lane divided facility.

The committee approved the fiscal assumptions for the 2052 plan, including the added Safer Seward funding, 3-2, and adopted the Complete Streets project list on the same split.

AMATS Executive Director Aaron Jongenelen said the draft returns to the committee for review, then goes out for public comment before final approval, and that removing the project after comment would trigger a new comment period. The plan is back before the committee Thursday, Aug. 20, as an action item open to public comment.