Anchorage Platting Board leaves Knik Arm easement intact, citing state authority

A placeholder easement for the Knik Arm Crossing stayed on a Port of Alaska subdivision plat Wednesday after the Anchorage Platting Board concluded that removing it would change nothing: the easement already exists on a state Department of Transportation plat, and state authority supersedes the municipality.

According to public testimony and planning documents cited at the meeting, the bridge has no funding and appears in neither the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions municipal transportation plan nor the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan. The Municipality of Anchorage previously filed suit in U.S. District Court challenging Federal Highway Administration approval of the project. Governor Walker shut it down, citing the state's inability to cover an estimated $2 billion cost.

The Port of Alaska preliminary plat was approved for 24 months, subject to conditions listed in the staff report. The plat divides approximately 48 acres into two tracts. Tract J-2 is intended for future park use and has a pending rezone to Parks and Recreation. The other tract remains I-2 Heavy Industrial District. Board members left the plat unchanged after concluding that the state plat would govern the easement regardless of any municipal action.

Board member Kevin Cross, who moved the plat forward unaltered, said the outcome was the same either way. "So even removing it is inconsequential because it still exists on the state DOT plat? That's correct. And so which— the state supersedes our municipal requirements. So I mean, so I hope the public understands that if it's on the state plat and the MOA is subject to the state, even if it's not on the municipal plat, it still exists. So then we're just— we're providing, you know, information, emotional service, but not anything of substance."

Bob French, a Government Hill resident, engineer, and AMATS Citizens Advisory Committee member, testified against the easement note. He said AMATS director Aaron Younglin had told the committee the Knik Arm Bridge could not be included in municipal or state plans because it appears in no statewide planning document. French called the project's toll revenue projections "frankly fraudulent," saying consulting firm Wilbur Smith Associates produced at least three financial plans in which traffic numbers were reverse-engineered from desired toll revenues. He asked the board to either add a condition requiring full funding and plan inclusion before the easement could be acted on, or remove the note entirely.

In his testimony, French said "a lot of the toll revenue plans that were produced by Wilbur Smith Associates are frankly fraudulent. As an engineer, I could tell you that it's what we call reverse engineering. There were at least 3 different financial plans that they produced that had— where the numbers for traffic were clearly derived from the need for the toll revenues that they thought they were going to have. Frankly, you know, the project was shut down by Governor Walker, and it was shut down because really the state does not have $2 extra billion."