Seward-Tudor interchange rebuild estimated at $96.5 million

The state's plan to rebuild the Seward Highway interchange at Tudor Road, one of Anchorage's busiest, would cost about $96.5 million, according to a rough estimate in a draft design study report filed with the city's Planning and Zoning Commission.

Only $5 million of that, for design, has been approved. The other $91.5 million is listed as funding "under review and approval." The state expects more than 90% of the money to be federal.

The draft, dated August, puts construction at $85 million. At a November 2025 workshop, held before the project team settled on a design, preliminary state programming estimates put construction at $30 million, according to a summary of that meeting included in the same report.

The interchange was among the first built in Anchorage, in the mid-1970s. It carries about 50,000 vehicles a day on the Seward Highway and 36,500 on Tudor Road, the report says, and its aging bridge has needed repairs after being struck by vehicles too tall to clear it.

On Tudor Road between MacInnes Street and the Old Seward Highway, four fatal crashes from 2014 through 2023 included two involving pedestrians, according to the report. Another pedestrian was killed near MacInnes in 2024.

The project would replace the bridge with one that gives more clearance. The design the state's project team recommends, a tight diamond interchange, would move the two intersections where the ramps meet Tudor Road closer together, 300 feet apart instead of 500, to help the traffic signals work together.

The state's project manager said in April that the new bridge would likely have protected walking and biking paths. The commission accepted the concept 5-0 that month.

Construction is expected to begin in summer 2030, according to a state notice.

The city's Planning Department has asked twice to delay the commission's review of the draft. It first asked to move it from Nov. 2 to Nov. 9, then asked to push it to Dec. 7, saying it "needs additional time to analyze the application and make recommendations to the Commission," according to a memo from Senior Planner Francis McLaughlin.