Anchorage mayor asks Assembly to accept $610,711 state grant for AnchorRIDES senior trips

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is asking the Anchorage Assembly to accept a $610,711 state grant and add $74,501 in city money to pay for AnchorRIDES trips for senior citizens. The Assembly takes up the request at its regular meeting at 5 pm Tuesday, Nov. 17, at the Loussac Library.

AnchorRIDES is the city's door-to-door shared-ride service. It serves people 60 and older, people whose disabilities keep them from using People Mover buses and some Medicaid recipients. Its grant-funded senior program gives riders 60 and older donation-based trips to medical, health care and pharmacy locations, according to the Public Transportation Department.

The grant covers the state's 2027 fiscal year. It comes from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services' Nutrition, Transportation and Support Services program: $300,000 in federal money passed through the state and $310,711 in state money, according to the Assembly memorandum on the grant.

The city's share, drawn from the 2026 Public Transportation Department operating budget, covers the required match plus $13,430 for support from central city agencies. The full package totals about $685,000.

The Public Transit Advisory Board counted about 176,974 AnchorRIDES trips in the most recent reporting year, 33,427 of them for medical appointments, in a resolution passed Sept. 10. The board asked for more city money to cover rising AnchorRIDES costs and to fund five more People Mover bus operator positions. LaFrance sent that request to the Assembly in October, when her proposed 2027 budget included no new transit funding.

At an Oct. 23 budget worksession, Assembly member Erin Baldwin Day said she had expected the operating budget to look different, since members had discussed renegotiating the AnchorRIDES contract and anticipated a significant cost increase.

Ona Brause, the city's budget director, said a 2027 increase in the AnchorRIDES contract was left out of the proposed budget. "That increase is not currently accommodated in this budget," Brause said. She said the city kept it on a list of items to correct in the revised budget, and that would mean either adjusting the contract or funding it.

In November 2025, the Assembly voted 9-3 to add $100,000 to the 2026 operating budget to expand fare-free People Mover access for seniors, a measure sponsored by Assembly members Daniel Volland, Baldwin Day and George Martinez. Baldwin Day said AnchorRIDES is more expensive than bus service and that she wanted to see whether free bus rides for seniors would change AnchorRIDES use.

The 2027 operating budget is also on the Assembly's agenda Tuesday.