Anchorage faces federal funding freeze if transportation plan misses December deadline

Anchorage could be blocked from starting any new federally funded road, trail, or transit project after Dec. 29 if the body that steers that money can't settle an argument over where its own boundary lies.

AMATS — the joint state and municipal organization that has planned Anchorage's roads, buses, and trails since 1976 — has to adopt its 2052 Metropolitan Transportation Plan by that date. Its current four-year project list runs to 94 projects worth roughly $1.2 billion across highway, transit, rail, port, and bike and pedestrian work.

Miss the deadline and that pipeline stalls. Director Aaron Jongenelen said it would "freeze the federal funding in AMATS' boundary." Projects already underway could keep spending what they have, he said, but nothing new could start until the plan is updated — with ripple effects for however long that takes.

The holdup is the boundary itself. The 2020 census pushed Anchorage's urbanized area past AMATS' existing lines, forcing a redraw that federal highway officials have to accept and that requires agreement between the organization and the governor. Members also have to decide how much land expected to develop over the next two decades to fold in, and they haven't agreed.

A mandatory 45-day public comment period in September and October leaves little room to settle it first.