Lawmakers press state on Safer Seward Highway project's size and funding as DOT reopens comment

State senators pressed the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities on Thursday over the size and funding of the Safer Seward Highway project, the state's plan to rebuild the highway along Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage.

The project covers about 20 miles of the Seward Highway between Rabbit Creek, near Potter Marsh, and Bird Flats. The road is the only highway link between Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula and the route to Girdwood and Whittier. The stretch became Alaska's first highway safety corridor in 2006 because of its rate of fatal and serious crashes. According to the department's project site, the corridor saw 9 fatal crashes and 21 crashes with serious injuries from 2018 to 2022, and while crash rates have fallen since the designation, serious crashes have not. The department's draft environmental assessment proposes a four-lane divided highway with a separate pathway.

At a Senate Transportation Committee hearing, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, said a public records request had turned up internal discussions at the department about the project's size and how it "doesn't necessarily align with some of the data." She asked the department to explain, and said the committee could hold a separate hearing on the project if needed.

Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith did not respond directly to the records Tobin described. She said the department held open houses this week, in person Tuesday at an Anchorage library and online Wednesday. It has also posted a story map and the data behind its studies on the project website, and reopened public comment on the environmental document for 30 days. Keith said the department had fallen short in explaining why the project is needed: "we don't feel we had done a very good job in our communications."

Because the corridor runs through the Municipality of Anchorage, the project must be included in the plans of Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions, a joint city-state planning body, to receive federal highway money. Keith said the project was pulled from those plans in the last planning round amid public frustration with the design, which put the federal money already spent on it at risk.

Tobin asked whether the department plans to start the project with state money and move it to federal funding later. She cited the Cascade Point ferry terminal near Juneau as a project where that approach drew pushback.

Keith said the first stage, programmed to begin in the coming budget year at about $125 million, will need to be federally funded. She said the state used its own money only for safety fixes it had committed to finishing this year, including a new left-turn lane into McHugh Creek.

Tobin said she wants to know where that state money came from and what other projects went without, and that she would follow up outside the hearing.

Committee Chair Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, said he and other lawmakers have heard "significant continued pushback" on the design, including limits on access to trailheads and the mountains along the highway.