Anchorage trails plan is 27 years old. A replacement is in the works.

Anchorage's 27-year-old trails plan is being replaced with a new document intended to guide trail management, maintenance, and development across Anchorage and Chugiak-Eagle River for the next 10 to 20 years. The 1997 Areawide Trails Plan, which itself replaced a 1985 plan, has outlasted its 20-year planning horizon, according to a literature review prepared by R&M Consultants, Inc. and commissioned by AMATS and the Municipality of Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department.

The update affects anyone who uses Anchorage trails. The new plan will set priorities for what gets built, maintained, and connected over the next two decades. It is being developed by AMATS, the Municipality of Anchorage, and partners, drawing on current data and public participation to identify goals, policies, and actionable strategies.

The new plan also carries unfinished business from 1997. A Trails Plan Oversight Committee the original plan recommended was never formed. A ranked list of 50 priority trail projects, compiled through a process that narrowed 300 candidate trails to 130, has not been fully tracked or completed.

Municipal code bars the city from using eminent domain to acquire private land for trails, which limits how planners can close gaps where private parcels block connections. The outdoor recreation group ORCA wants the plan to explicitly support parallel soft-surface singletrack alongside existing and future multi-use paths where feasible, a position that reflects a broader tension among trail users over what the network should look like.

The planning process drew 2,056 survey responses and 79 workshop attendees. The new plan is expected to move toward approvals, including review by the Parks and Recreation Commission and AMATS committees, in summer 2026.