Federal grant funds planning for Parks Highway separated paths

Federal records disagree on who will administer $1.8 million in planning money for separated paths near Cantwell, and the money does not settle who would maintain a path once built. The cooperative agreement runs from Oct. 5, 2026, through Oct. 4, 2029.

The award will support preliminary engineering, environmental analysis, surveys and scoping for separated pathways within and between communities along the Parks Highway between mileposts 203 and 259, work recommended by Alaska DOT&PF and the Federal Highway Administration in a 2022 Parks Highway Planning and Environmental Linkages Study. It is planning money, not construction money.

USAspending.gov lists the $1.8 million as a cooperative agreement to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in Juneau, naming commuters of the Parks Highway corridor as beneficiaries. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Rural and Tribal Assistance Pilot Program awardee list, published in March, credits the same amount and project title, "Cantwell Separated Paths: Improving Road Safety for All," to the Denali Borough. The program awarded $54.2 million to 49 projects nationwide on April 6, 2026, drawn from 799 applications seeking more than $789 million.

The underlying study, completed in March 2022 by Jacobs Engineering Group for DOT&PF, the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service, covers 56 miles of the Parks Highway and recommends six "community connector" separated pathways. Its corridor also includes contaminated sites, Native Allotments and Alaska Heritage Resource Survey sites within the buffered boundary. Commercial trucks make up nearly 20 percent of corridor traffic, which nearly doubles in summer with Denali National Park tourism.

The study team, reflecting community input, cast the pathways as connectors for Cantwell and Carlo Creek residents and visitors who now travel narrow shoulders beside high-speed freight and tourist traffic.

Draft project documentation for the Parks Highway MP 209-212 reconstruction states a maintenance agreement will be needed because DOT&PF cannot maintain a separated path. The planning grant does not identify who would maintain or plow a future path.