Alaska DOT&PF: 10062026 Virtual Public Meeting Draft 2027-2030 STIP

Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you for joining us, the Alaska Department of Transportation Public Facilities, for tonight's virtual public meeting on the draft 2027 2030 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, or known as STIP. My name is Jess Bowers. I'm going to be facilitating tonight's meeting. We are scheduled from 4 to 5:30, and we'll start with a brief presentation on the draft STIP, and then staff will be available to answer your questions and document your public comments.

Before we begin, just a few housekeeping items. If you're joining online, please use the Q&A feature or raise your hand. There'll be a Q&A at the end and we'll go ahead and call on you and answer those questions as they come in. If you are calling in by phone, press *9 to raise your hand and *6 to unmute when we call on you. And comments that are shared tonight will be documented as part of the public record.

If you'd rather comment on your own time, there is a slide where we will walk you through how to comment outside of this meeting. Um, and as a reminder, the review period is open through October 29th. Um, and with that, it is my pleasure to go ahead and toss this to Sarah, who will go through some of the nuts and bolts of the STEP.

Hello and good afternoon. Um, like Jess said, thank you for joining us. I'm Sarah Lucy. I'm the statewide planning chief here at DOT. And I want to introduce you to the STIP.

If you don't know what our Statewide Transportation Improvement Program is, it is our 4-year document which provides Alaska with the opportunity to identify federally funded surface transportation investments that we expect over the next 4 years. So it is developed with— by DOT, but in coordination with our federal partners, FHWA, Federal Transit Administration, and our metropolitan planning organization partners, communities, and other transportation partners and planners in the state. So it's a very large document. If you haven't gotten a chance to open it up, it's quite a few pages, but we have a lot of detail to share with you today. The STIP includes investments for highways and bridges— sorry, go back one more— the Alaska Marine Highway System, our public transportation system, our active transportation projects, community transportation projects that have been selected, and other eligible surface transportation programs.

The STIP does not include airport projects, but does include quite a bit.

It is a planning and programming document, and it identifies our projects and programs that we anticipate to use in that 4-year period. In this case, that's 2027 to 2030, and establishes where funding is expected to be available. Um, that's where the planning part comes in. We, uh, do a lot of estimates and planning to make sure that we get the, uh, close to the dollar amount as possible on projects that we anticipate, but changes happen throughout the process. Um, and funding is displayed in the phases outlined on this slide, everything from that Phase 0, which is programmatic or multi-project allocations, to Phase 9, which is miscellaneous or other activities, but it includes things like Phase 4, which is construction.

That's where a lot of our big dollars sit. Phase 3 is right-of-way, 7 is utilities, and 8 is planning and research. And projects must fit within our federal funding reasonably as we can, as we can in the STIP. And this requirement is known as fiscal constraint. So you'll see a lot of number tables and estimates in the STIP that we do our best to make that estimate ahead of time, and as the project develops and the schedule and costs and the fund sources actually come to fruition and that project is getting close to construction, some of those numbers might change a little bit, and therefore the STIP is able to change through an amendment or an administrative modification as appropriate.

DOT maintains these revisions throughout the life of the STIP, and they're posted on the STIP homepage. So if you're interested, as the STIP develops, all of those will be available for public process and viewing on our website. And with that, let's see. Oh yes, okay.

I think we must have gone— can I go back to the pathways? I'm sorry. Uh-oh.

There we go. How does a project get into the STIP?

So we've identified 4 critical pathways for how a project will get into the STIP. That planning and partner coordination is our statewide and regional planning efforts in coordination with our community partners to identify priorities. That pathway 2 is competitive and criteria-based programs that use solicitations, criteria, scores, and ranking. Or asset programs that use condition and risk assessments, lifecycle considerations and recommendations. That pathway number 3 is our safety investments, and it considers crashes and locations of recurring risk.

And pathway 4 is essential services, considering like consequences of interruption or delay. So projects are usually identified in one of 4 pathways, and then that common programming gateway looks at eligibility and planning consistency across all of our projects. The process is outlined in Volume 6 of the draft STIP if you're interested in more detail on the 4 pathways. And with that, I will hand it off to Judy Chapman. She's going to describe where public comments fit into the STIP.

Yeah, hi, I'm Judy Chapman. I'm the Deputy Director of Planning for DOT, and we are here today to announce this public comment period for the STIP. Which lasts until October 29th, and we really would like to get your comments. And of course, it takes you looking into the STIP. It's a big long document, looking at the different projects, the funding, the priorities, and then considering whether you have questions, whether you think a project that is appearing later in the STIP year should be moved forward, perhaps.

If you see an error or you have another community transportation priority that you don't see, those are those are the kinds of comments that we're looking for. We make an effort to provide local tribal agency and stakeholder perspectives and get those into the STIP. We also will recognize that there probably are some errors in there that we may need to correct, and you can help us identify those. We also have our own staff taking a hard look at it to identify any issues that we have in there, but we really do take all your comments very seriously. We will read every one, and that, that, that comment and come up with a response, whether it's a change that we can make or maybe it's one that we can't.

We will get back to you. And so, yeah, we're in the middle of our 45-day comment period, which is required by federal law, and at the end of that comment period, we— and we've considered your comments, the next version of the STIP will look slightly different.

Next slide.

I think this one goes over to DC Keith. I'm not sure if she's on yet.

Oh, there she is. DC Keith, I'll turn it over to you. Okay, excellent. Thank you, everyone. This is Catherine Keith.

I'm the Deputy Commissioner with the department. I'm gonna focus on the proposed investments across Alaska and then show you how to find the projects that matter to you so that you can provide a comment back.

We have a reference key for terms that you may see. We love to use acronyms, the more complicated the better, so I'll explain main programs as we go, but you can always have this moving forward. In the STIP narrative itself, we also have a similar reference guide along with definitions.

So our draft STIP is organized into 6 different volumes. It is substantial, although we have made improvements this year, so it's just one PDF download. It's about 25 megabytes, which, if you recall, our '24 to '27 STIP was, was not nearly so easy to manage. Here, all of the information that you need would be within these volumes. To look at a specific project or program, you want to start with Volume 2.

That'll give you the scope, The phases, as Sarah walked through with you, the type of funds that we're using in the years, you can get a sense of the schedule for these projects. Volume 3 explains the funding picture. Volume 4 contains information on our partner transportation programs and the other volumes, the narrative, Volumes 5, which is our engagement summary, and 6, which is project selection. Um, they help, uh, give you an understanding of our process in developing the STIP and our guidelines throughout the programming.

So our proposed STIP, it covers federal fiscal years '27 to '30. It includes 216 projects and programs. Now, one program, it may contain many projects, so it's not a count of individual discrete projects that are going to come out of this STIP. It's significantly higher, but there'll be 216 STIP IDs and pages to look at. State of good repair and safety, they account for 63% of the listed STIP items.

So that just— this describes, if you look at these percentages, the share of the project and count rather than the share of the dollars here. The remaining groups support economic vitality, sustainability, and resiliency, and we're going to go into a bit more about what each of these investment categories is.

I wanted to have a brief slide about our funding. Again, Volume 3 breaks it out in great detail, what these fund sources are and the amounts and how we're spending it. But our primary funding comes from our Federal Highway Administration, the Transit Administration, Maritime Administration, which is MARAD, along with our state match and local match contributions. So altogether, across the 4 years, we have $5.6 billion in funding to apply towards the needs that are outlined in the STIP. Our state match is right now about $600 million in need, and local match is about $134 million.

About $1 billion of this is programmed across 3 metropolitan areas that includes the Anchorage area, Fairbanks area, along with North Pole, and the Matsu Metropolitan area. Now, the Metropolitan Planning Organizations, or MPOs, they actually have the planning authority for transportation within these metropolitan areas. However, the local governments, DOT, our transit operators, the railroads, we coordinate on our transportation planning so that these documents merge well into a coordinated transportation program. This includes Western Federal Lands Highway Division and BIA and our tribes with their Tribal Transportation Program is also part of our STIP. So for projects within the metropolitan areas, it's important to remember that you do need to go to the respective websites with whether it's an MPO or BIA or Western Federal Lands and download their own transportation improvement program.

So if you're looking for a project that's in Anchorage, for example, you won't find it in the STIP. You'll need to go to the AMATS website, download the TIP, or look at their long-term, um, Metropolitan Planning Transportation Program, their MPP. So what we will see in our STIP in Volume 3 is the funds that are then attributed that are being spent within those areas. And so over $1 billion again goes into those metro areas, but you won't see those discrete projects listed out in that Volume 2 itself.

So now is the fun part, getting to talk about, you know, what projects we're going to see coming out of the STIP. Taking care of the system that we have is a substantial part of what we do. Our pavement and bridge preservation programs are about $722 million in planned obligations. This can be resurfacing, drainage culvert work, bridge repairs, and other related improvements. Project examples are like the Elliott Highway resurfacing.

Petersburg package has a chip seal across 5 portions of 5 different roads. Preservation treatments vary depending on the condition and location, of course. We also have a Highway Safety Improvement Program, HSIP. This contains about $392 million. These projects address pedestrian signals, lighting on Glacier Highway, uh, Ingra and Gamble safety improvements, um, such as undergrounding utilities so we can take down the power poles that are there and have increased room on the sidewalks for pedestrian use.

So for you, when you're looking at these programs, even if we don't have all of our highway safety improvement projects listed, if you do know a difficult crossing, a drainage problem, have a safety concern, let us know that in the STIP, and, and we do incorporate these into our broader needs list. So we can have a program that addresses the needs across the state.

Our highway corridor portfolio covers 14 corridors across Alaska. There's $290— sorry, $2.92 billion in planned obligations across our corridors. So this will include the roadwork itself, bridges, bridge approaches, drainage, or other safety improvements. In South Central, we have the Sterling, Seward, Glenn, and Parks Highway corridors. The Interior Group includes the Alaska Highway, Tok Cut-Off, Richardson, and Steese.

Dalton and Elliott, they support the northern access, and coastal and cross-border work includes South Tongass, Chiniak, Klondike, and Alaska Highway in the Yukon as well. A corridor can have several stages or different work underway at different times. Often in our STIP, you'll see them programmed as parent and child projects. Those can be confusing to read and understand what is going on, but if you look at the scope of each project, you'll get a sense of, you know, amongst a broader corridor project, such as the Cooper Landing bypass, which particular stage, what that termini is for one individual STIP project and how much money and when that project is going to construction.

But it's great to look at a graph like this because these corridors, they do tell us a story about how Alaska grew and what it takes to keep our state connected, which in times of increased storms and washouts, it might be more difficult than it sounds, but some of these projects have been going back to the middle of last century, um, or like the Dalton grew up in the pipeline era. So these original roads accomplished something extraordinary, but we still have to address and make sure that these roads fit today's traffic, uh, where we may have constrained crossings or deteriorating drainage, there's difficult curves. Those are improvements that you see here across many different reconstruction projects. You'll see that Sterling and Alaska Highways right now are the focus in this 4-year program.

Our bridge-related portfolio is about $2.12 billion. There's some duplication in corridors based on this in the previous slide that you looked at. That's because in our STIP program, there isn't a way to just pull out the the dollar amount of how much is exactly in a bridge, but we do know there are $613 million that is solely bridge-focused on bridge replacements. And then the large category here in yellow, that'll be a corridor project that also has a major bridge component as part of that. So these include fixing old one-lane timber deck trusses on the Steese Highway or our wartime-era Alaska Highway crossings.

In Ketchikan, we have waterfront viaducts that need to get replaced. They're back from the 1950s. These are bridges across the state in all forms that we include as part of our program.

Excuse me, I have one of these colds that everyone else has going around.

You can go to the next slide.

Excellent. So for our coastal communities, ferry connections are, of course, a major part of everyday transportation. Our waterways portfolio— we're proud of this— STIP contains over $1.05 billion across 26 different projects. About $418 million of these is for vessels. This will be vessel replacements.

Refurbishments. $379 Million supports terminal upgrades, shipyard work. Now, our vessels and terminals— this is intuitive for folks especially that use AMHS system— they have to work together. A vessel must be able to use the berth and loading system safely. They need to be interchangeable.

Our LaConte replacement is an example of a future vessel. Replacement project. These are funds that were just recently awarded from the Federal Transit Administration's Rural Ferry Program. The CAKE Terminal Modernization is another one which is long time overdue. We'll be upgrading the mooring and loading interfaces for different vessels in the fleet.

So in addition to the capital projects, we also have operating funds included in this STIP, and this includes system upgrades. We have Wi-Fi on the vessels now, so we're going to improve and expand that program. We also are going to update our reservation system, which has been a long time overdue as well. So we're excited about the developments in our waterways portfolio.

For rural transportation and regional access, we have $834 million And this is over 43 different projects and programs. This includes road and river connections, community streets, paths. It includes our ice roads, seasonal trails, multi-access trails. One example is Williamsport-Pyle Bay that connects road and marine access between Cook Inlet and the Iliamna Lake region. Another connector is from King Cove over to Cold Bay that has an 18.9-mile road that that's been desired by the community now for decades and is under construction right now and will continue on in this 4-year program.

Smaller improvements are just as important as those big regional connectors, and we have several programs that you'll see in the STIP that allow for grants and projects to be nominated by the communities for inclusion in the program.

Now, resilience and dependable travel is something that we all take very seriously. This means keeping transportation usable when we have erosion, flooding, rockfall, earthquakes. Hazards do threaten our transportation system, and when that occurs, that has a major impact on daily life. That's why this investment area has $224 million across 17 different projects and programs. Some examples along the West Coast are where we have erosion protection and drainage improvements in, like, Gullivin, Shishmaref.

This was originally developed, these projects, when, uh, Murbach had impacted the West Coast, followed by the Typhoon Ho-Lung. So other examples are in Homer, where in Kachemak Road, we're improving the evacuation route down in Homer. North Douglas has a rockfall mitigation project. In Juneau, we have avalanche projects and programs being developed. We have river erosion protection on Talkeetna Spur Road, which recently had seen 50 feet of erosion over just 3 days.

So the question here is, you're looking at these projects when you're commenting, is, you know, what are we missing that's critical? What's interrupting your transportation system? So if you know of these recurring disruptions, especially, or areas that have been impacted more than a couple times, let us know and put that in the comment. In the general STIP comment if you don't see it already included.

All right, now some of the nuts and bolts about how to actually read the document. We have a couple different page styles that you'll see. One is projects specifically, and the other are the programs, and they look a little bit different. On the project example, this is where you want to go to see the scope, Schedule, Budget, the Basics of Delivering Projects. Sarah went through what all of our different phases mean, and there's also a reference guide in Volume 2 itself that'll tell you how to read these pages.

When you look at the programs, they may seem like there's less information. We have a lot of what we call Phase Zeros, which is a multi-phase program entry, and that's where we may have 5 projects a part of this, or we may have 50, and the programs, though, will tell you the scope, and often in the project selection volume, you'll see how projects get entered into each of these different programs. So this is what you'll look at when you download the PDF document, and then on the interactive STIP, you'll see a different way to look at it.

And I'll skip this slide because Sarah ran through what these different phases are.

So going online to the interactive STIP, please do that. Our team, Data Modernization and Innovation Office, as well as our planning department, um, have worked hard to come up with a very innovative, um, interactive platform, which is really unlike anything that you'll see in other states. This is really special. Our DOT won a national award actually 2 years ago because of the development of this, so please take advantage of the unique platform here. So when you go to dot.alaska.gov, you see the link here, you'll just be able to pull up, you click on a couple buttons, to comment on the STIP and the interactive STIP you can look at, and you'll see these options.

A summary will give you the overall picture. The map will help you explore by place, and then the search is useful when you already know a project name, a keyword, or the number itself. You can pull up that project directly.

So say you want to look at our geospatial interface here. Choose the map, and within that you can select projects or programs. There's filter options depending on what you're looking for. You can have a borough or census area, a legislative district, and then if it helps, you can also add an investment area filter to narrow that list down a bit. Some of the projects and programs, like anything in the Marine Highway System, just because of how interchangeable the— or dynamic that transportation network is, we'll classify that as Marine Highways option.

We also have some that are Alaska-wide, and that's where we'll have a broader impact to a program that doesn't narrow it down into one location. So Kake Ferry Terminal example is classified under the Marine Highways, and if you were looking just under the South Coast Region filter, it might not be the best way to find it. So you can use the map, you can hover over an area of interest, and then the right-hand box, you'll see how it breaks it out by STIP ID. As you hover over an area, all of the projects within that area are then pulled up, and you can click on any one of them to get more information.

So now, say you want to search for something specifically, say the Cape Ferry Terminal. You can enter in the STIP ID or the word CAKE can come up, and this is what you'll see. You have the detailed scope, you have the phasing information, the budget information, and then you have the big blue Submit Comment. So that's what you would click to say how much you're excited about this project and you really want to see it move forward. Even a comment like that is extremely helpful to know that a project has support just as much as a comment like, "I really love cake, but you know, in Hoonah, we really need XYZ." It's okay to say that, and you can work that out with Kate later.

But the point is, comments of support are equally important to those that have, you know, modification that you'd like to see in a project or program.

Another feature which is extremely helpful is this comparison. Excel download, just click on the download button and then you'll see in the Excel file, you'll compare what we have right now in the '27 to '30 STIP and you'll compare that to earlier '24 to '27 STIP along with all of those amendments. It's great because you can look at one project, the history of the project from the progressive years, you'll see where we said we were going to construct it in '24, and then we said we were going to construct it in '27, and, you know, now we're going to construct it in 2030. So sometimes projects do take longer than we expect for myriad reasons, but it's helpful to have historical reference so we can track where a project's at or what cost escalations have been realized from a cost estimate that we had prepared in '24 versus what it now costs us in for example, it can be pretty shocking, the impact of inflation and how that has an overall effect on our program.

So, in looking at this, you know, turn what you learn into a comment. So, go through that. When you do want to submit a comment, there's going to be 4 pages. So you'll click on that box and one page is about just contact information. You know, you don't have to put your contact information in here, but we do like to respond and we will respond to every single comment that gives us your contact information.

So if it's a phone number, an email, an address, anything that you're comfortable with sharing, we will let you know that, respond to your comment. Perhaps it's more information or confirmation of something, and then we'll also let you know if there were changes in the STIP as a result of that comment. So more precise a comment can be is helpful. You might have a design recommendation, or you may have a question just for your own knowledge about how a project may be constructed in future years. You don't have to be a DOT planning expert, just use your own words and communicate to us what you would like to see.

Okay, so with that, your local knowledge, you're our eyes and ears out there driving on our roads and running the ferries. So we're not able to be everywhere. So we do rely on all of you to let us know what's needed, what repairs are important, what transportation need is missing. And this is your opportunity to let us know that. You can always reach out to us to let us know your concerns.

But this is an important part that will drive decisions and investments in years to come. So it has been mentioned before, but comments close October 29th this year at 5:00 PM. And again, here's information on where to go. I am going to turn it back to Planning now, and they're going to explain what happens after you submit that comment.

Yeah, thank you, DC Keith. Yeah, once we get a comment, and again, whatever it says, we will read it and we will get it to the right expert within the department. If it's a comment about a project, that project manager will take a look at it. If you want to change the schedule or you think it needs to be advanced, we'll see what we can do if there's a possibility there. And then we'll review it throughout the department.

Anybody who might have some, you know, knowledge about that issue will be consulted. And then we'll prepare a response or a disposition. So again, if you comment by letter, we'll send you a letter. You comment by email, we'll send you an email back. If you comment by text, we can text you back, I suppose, but we might actually do it by email if you leave us your email address.

And then we'll revise the STIP as appropriate if we can make a change or, you know, if you have raised an important issue that deserves to be acknowledged by an actual physical change in the STIP, we'll make that change in it. And then we will prepare a new, new version of the updated STIP that will then include the changelog. So everybody who has looked at the STIP thus far can see the comments that came in and can see what we changed. And then that package of projects and schedules will be submitted to FHWA, Federal Highway Administration, and FTA, the Federal Transit Administration, after public comment, and we will be seeking their approval on that STIP, and that will happen probably within a week or two of the comment deadline. So again, your comments are really, really important to us.

We will read them and we will respond to you. And we know there are things that you know that we don't know. So if you see something that maybe it's a priority, like we said, maybe it's a schedule change, maybe it's just thank you for putting this project in the STIP, we will be eager to hear from you. So thank you very much. And I think with that, I am going to turn the presentation over to the Commissioner.

Hi. Okay. Hey everyone. Yeah, Ryan Anderson, Commissioner of DOT here, and I just wanted to really emphasize the importance of the comments and the engagement. We really appreciate when people reach out to us.

There's— I know a lot of folks out there in past comment periods, we've had some really great ideas. We've also had some situations out there, issues, erosion, those types of things come up, and we have absolutely made changes to the STIP to address them. And so, you know, all of you that are out there, you know, you see what's out and where you're at on our transportation system. It's quite vast, right? We have this great transportation system that stretches across Alaska, biggest geography in the United States.

It's hard for us to get out everywhere, and so we really do count on all of you to help us, you know, understand where the problems are, and then try to get those prioritized and work through this. And, you know, this, it really, this is the program that has the real boots-on-the-ground types, you know, project delivery. We, I mean, this is where the, all the planning and all the design work and everything hits the funding stream and goes to construction. And so This is really an important tool for us to make sure that we're moving these things forward and in a cost-effective and fiscally constrained way. So lots of challenges out there.

We know the needs for Alaska are much more than what the funding is available in the STEP, but we've been working hard to make sure we're leveraging all the funding across the across the programs that we can, and we're doing a lot of creative things with mixing funds. And I'm sure you've heard, you know, on the ferry systems and the highway systems and the discretionary grants and all those things. So all of these things, even, you know, if you have a comment and we can't fit it in, um, you know, at this time, there's still all these other opportunities just by getting your comment in and getting it into the, um, the STIP needs list that really helps us continue down this path of of finding ways to fund these projects. So absolutely appreciate— well, I want to thank everyone on this presentation, on this call, the team that was here today. But also, you see the dates there, September 14th through October 29th, 2026, and the links.

And hopefully, you know, all the new tools that are out there to comment are helpful and useful for everyone. So with that, we'll sign off and just want to thank everybody again. For being a part of this presentation.

And at this point, we'll go ahead and answer some of those raised hands and questions. Angelica. Perfect. All right, we're going to go ahead and start with Helen. If you want to go ahead and unmute, you should be able to share your question or comment.

Hello, if you are speaking, we are actually unable to hear you. If you want to double-check your mic Connection.

Me now? Oh, we can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. I was noticing there didn't seem to be any projects in the Haines region in the Chilkat Valley for the next 4 years.

And I know we do have some road issues out on Lutak, and you've been working out the highway. So I didn't know if it meant that you felt like you'd done enough in our region, or if I'm just not seeing something correctly.

I'll probably take that one. I think that's a really good comment. I know, you know, there's a limited amount of funds and we can't reach every need. In that 4-year window. But if you see some things that you know are priorities that you think we've missed, um, the best avenue would probably be to contact your regional planning chief, which is Jill Melcher, Angiuno, and let her know that you have some comments on the STIP and that LUTAC's missing, or that there's an issue on the Haines Highway that's not showing up.

She is going to be collecting transportation needs for our our required transportation needs list. So even if it isn't possible to get to a start in the next 4 years, we also have a 10-year capital improvement plan that goes beyond that 10-year or that 4-year window. And so it would be really useful for us to know of those needs and we can send somebody out to take a look at them, someone from maintenance or planning or somebody like that. So I do appreciate that comment. Thank you.

And Judy, I'll just jump in briefly that we do have the last section on the Haynes Highway. This is Catherine Keith, sorry. That corridor we've been working on, milepost 3.9 to 25, and so that would be included, but we do know there's other projects in Haynes area that have needs. So yeah, if you could please add those specific projects, especially as you know them to be, that would be great to have in the comment log. Okay, I'm going to alternate between the Q&A and the raised hands.

So the next question is from Sheldon Barnes. It's a bit long. What are your thoughts on how 23 U.S.C. 202 Could potentially be structured or incorporated into the compact/funding agreement to leverage state-allocated transportation resources for projects that benefit both the tribe and the state. One idea I would particularly like to explore is the maintenance of the last 18 miles of the Copper River Highway from approximately mile 18 to mile 36 in Cordova, Alaska.

There may be opportunities for the native village of EAC to take on certain maintenance responsibilities or partner with the state on work in the corridor while using the appropriate transportation funding mechanisms to support the work?

I, if you don't mind, I'll take that one too. I love the idea of restructuring 202. It's a tool that we've used in the past when it was more efficient to transfer funds to a Native tribe than go through the federal Title 23 process. The commissioner can make that determination on a capital-funded project under our program if it's in the state's best interest, and we've done that in a number of cases with Cayena, Utqiagvik, Tanana, And I'm sure some others I'm forgetting about. I'm not sure—.

We also have done some partnerships with tribal transportation dollars that are really promising. One was with the Manly Tribe on a TTP, tribal transportation funded bridge in Manly, where DOT would design it and pay the match, although it ended up that it was 100% money and there was no match in the end. But the tribe would put up the funding for the capital improvements. So there's all sorts of options like that, and where we have partners and we have mutual interests, we are interested in talking about that. And I'm sure the Commissioner will attest that he's had a lot of conversations with tribes about capital projects that we might undertake jointly.

So.

Perfect. Thank you, Judy. I have next to speak is Steve H. Perrins. You are able to unmute and share your comment.

Hi there. Yes, my name is Steve Perrins. I want to just comment about the West Sioux Bridge and Roads that's in there. You know, we're looking at about $250 million almost for these projects. Um, I want to say that I am, uh, very strongly against this.

Um, the boat launch that would be there would actually take longer to get to by driving that road than it would be to, uh, access the current Deschka boat launch to access those same rivers. It's, uh, deep water, steep banks, fast-flowing rivers, and just not a very practical place for a boat launch. Uh, furthermore, flying over that area, the, um, the other side of that river is just all marshland. So we're building, uh, a road and what I believe would be the largest bridge in Alaska, um, if you can confirm or correct me on that, um, to just end across that river in swampland when 90% of the community and 20+ wilderness tourism lodges are all against this project.

So I don't know if you can shed any light on those, but I don't know what the future cost for maintaining this is going to be, but there are a lot of people that are against this, and my theory is all the comments— there's going to be a lot of comments against it, And it's just going to remain in there regardless of what people say.

Okay, thank you for your comment.

From an anonymous attendee, they ask, can projects in the NPOs be included in the project projects and programs map? I understand the tips are incorporated by reference, but I believe they are all— they are still part of the overall statewide tip.

I can answer that one, Angelica, and this is Katherine. But absolutely, this has been a goal of ours for, you know, a year or two now, being able to have one dashboard similar to what you see with our STIP, but for all projects, including aviation and emergency projects. So we've been working, um, in that direction and in incremental steps. So it would be likely very separate from our, our STIP process, but it could show the projects that we have programmed, which would include those in the metropolitan areas in, in one location. So we're excited, uh, to to get to the point.

We're not there quite yet, but agreed that that would be very helpful. I will say that we have Apex as a resource. It's a website where you can go and, and that highlights projects in construction this year, which is not quite what you were looking at, but just a reminder to the public that that's a resource to show construction projects statewide.

Thank you, DC Keith.

It looks like you— there's not a registered name with it, so it says Zoom user. If you would like to unmute and share your question or comment. Good afternoon, can you hear me? This is Lori Craig in Juneau. Yes, we can hear you.

Yesterday I rode the ferry Columbia to Skagway, and as we docked in the wind and the waves, I looked down off the ship at the condition of the Skagway dock. The concrete is crumbling, the metal is rusting. It's not a safe place. And yet the crew did a fabulous job of docking us there. I was really horrified that we had allowed something so essential as the ferry dock at the northern end of the ferry system to become so dilapidated.

Now, you know that we had some really quick repairs a month or so ago to allow the ferry to arrive for the Klondike Relay. It's a really important event out of Skagway up into Canada, and I was very pleased to see that happening. But I was horrified at the condition of the dock, that anything operated by the state could be so dangerous. So I would like to recommend that this get very highly up upgraded into a repair situation, and I'm happy to offer some funding for it. And that is from the Cascade Point proposal to create a second ferry terminal about 30 miles from where the current one is, through roads that need to be plowed and have— did not get through last year.

It's the Cascade Point proposal, and apparently a contract has been signed for that, really needs to be canceled. The communities of Haines and Skagway have both spoken up from their, their government groups saying they don't think that's necessary and it's a waste of money. So I'd really like us to reprioritize the Skagway dock, put that Cascade Point money where it needs to be throughout the system, including an upgrade to some of the ferries. But before I end, I want to be sure that I compliment the crew They're polite, they're professional, they're customer service oriented. Watching the, the bosun and the crew manage to squeeze in all the vests, all the documents, the— excuse me, the vehicles needing to get south on that boat yesterday was absolutely phenomenal.

It's like squeezing puzzle pieces together, and they did a fabulous job. Thank you.

Thanks for that comment. This is Katherine. We'll be sure that the crew is— we pass your remarks on to them. That always means a lot to folks. And I will highlight that we have a project for Skagway because we completely agree with you.

That project is starting this year, and we have about $7.2 million programmed in the 4 years. With construction expected to cost about $70 million. And we have that right now in like '30, '31. So if you don't mind a comment positive to that project, and, you know, we'll take this comment and— that, but that would be a good one to pay attention to. Thank you.

Yeah. And if I could just real quick, the Skagway dock is safe. It's been inspected very recently, you know, after the repairs. We had engineers out there fully inspected, so that is a safe facility. I just wanted to make sure that was on the record.

Thank you.

From anonymous attendee, we have a comment.

1,200+ Pages seems excessive. Please consider pulling most of the boilerplate and background stuff out. If necessary, it can be referenced.

Going back to raised hands, it looks like Bea Hawkins is next. If you'd like to unmute and share your comment or question.

Yeah, good afternoon. Say, I was just wondering what the schedule was for the repaving project Anchor Point to Ketchumac Drive.

Now, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Thanks. I was wondering what the schedule is for the repaving project of the highway from Anchor Point to Ketchumac Drive.

Yeah, maybe we can drop that in the chat. We'll have to look that up. I don't know, Commissioner, if you've been able to do that. Yeah, we—. Brian, is that the Anchor Point project, the major highway project going through there that you're referencing?

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, I would have to look in the STIP. Boy, does someone have that handy? It's in whatever the funding year is that's in there for Phase 4 would be the year we were shooting for construction. Yeah, sorry, I can jump in here.

That is going forward in '27, Brian. Right now it's expected to be about $115 million for construction, but you'll see that come into All right, thanks.

Okay. From—. I apologize if I mess up this name— Milis Cody. These slides exclude advanced construction, but AC is becoming a major part of how projects are financed. West Usitna alone appears to carry roughly $189 million in planned advanced construction with those conversions pushed beyond FY 2030.

What safeguards ensure that commitments of this size don't crowd out future community projects if anticipated federal funding is unavailable?

Yeah, I can, um, answer this one, Angelica. So our advanced construction, it's, it's governed by your AC guidelines, which are in the STIP narrative itself. So I'd encourage you to take a look at that document. Document if you're interested. Uh, so when we program a project, um, it doesn't automatically, um, authorize construction or release funding, but before we advance projects and we, we leverage advanced construction here to help us have flexibility with project schedules, um, and readiness, but our guidelines, it'll walk you through, uh, what we have for a year-end management target.

We, best practice and what we've talked with other states about, is carrying about 1 year of our advanced construction balance of our, our revenue that we get into the state, which is about, with federal highways funds, about $800 million a year. And so we target not exceeding that amount in our advanced construction. So we do have advanced construction programmed into the STIP across the different years. We use that judiciously when it comes time to programming the projects so that we're not increasing that threshold that we have as a guideline in our narrative. But your projects about West Sissetna, we can certainly include that in the project record.

Thank you. TC Keith. Um, okay, from Megan Baxton, how was a project categorized, i.e., sustainability or safety, if the project arguably addresses both issues?

Could you repeat that, Angelica? Of course. How was a project categorized, i.e., sustainability or safety, if the project arguably addressed both issues?

Thank you. Yes, that, that is a challenge, but typically we'll focus on the actual scope of work where the dollars are going, the majority of the dollars. If it's going into like pavement preservation, even if we are also including a pedestrian pathway, then we'll typically mark that as state of good repair if that's where the majority of those dollars are going. But yeah, you're correct. Most projects will address, and we try to do that, the value across all of those investment categories.

Thank you, DC Keith. Um, we have another question from an anonymous attendee. Is the rural ports and barge landings program new?

Yeah, and this is not new. We have had it in our '24 to '27 STIP before. We have not yet kicked off the program with projects or solicitations from communities, but it serves still a real vital need of making these improvements and repairs. So there'll be more to that to come. Thank you.

I have a raised hand from Dixie Dayo. If you would like to unmute yourself and share your question or comment, you can do so now. Thank you. On the $43.5 million for the Elliott Highway, how much of that will be from the Dalton Highway to Manly Hot Springs? Kanena River Landing.

These are good questions. We're looking.

And then another part of that question is from the Tofty Road to the Tanana, or it's called the Tanana Road, but from the Tofty Road to the Yukon River, is there any money allocated for that?

All right, so on that Elliott, the mileposts that we'll be working on are 12 to 18 and 63 to 73.

So does that answer the first part of the question? I'm not familiar with what those mileposts are. I can just tell you that it's from the Elliott High— from the Dalton, where the Dalton goes north and the Elliott Highway goes west to Manly Hot Springs. I'm sorry, I don't know what the mileposts are. Yeah, milepost 70 is where it splits.

So it looks, it looks like there's a portion of the Elliott that the beginning portion that's included in the one project, Dixie. The, but the remainder, yeah, that's if you all are having challenges there on the Elliott, and I know you are, those are great comments to put in for the STIP. And at this time, there isn't any projects slated in the STIP for the segment from Manly Hot Springs to the Yukon River.

We do have some state funds that we've allocated for certain sections out there. So that is happening right now, but this is for the federal funds that are in the STEP. We don't have any projects allocated.

Okay, thank you, and thank you for making it so easy to understand the presentation that you have. I will definitely comment on that section. Thank you.

Thank you, Dixie.

A question from Sandra. Hello from Kodiak. The project deep dive states projects states project number 34921 starts at milepost 4.85, but we understand you really mean mile point 4.85. This is confusing and clarity would be nice.

Yeah, thanks for that, Sandra. This looks like an error, so appreciate you pointing that out. We've tried to be consistent with our use of mileposts as a standard instead of milepoints, but on occasion we do need to still use milepoints due to lack of documented mileposts. So we will fix that so that we have the correct use of milepoints in this project instance. So sorry about that, but thanks for pointing it out.

Thank you, good catch. We have a hand raised from Loki Gail Tobin. If you would like to unmute and share your comment or question. Hello, this is actually Mackenzie Pope, staff to Senator Lukie Gail Tobin, representing North Anchorage Senate District I. I didn't realize I was logged into her Zoom. And I am attending just to get some information as we're writing our office comments.

And, you know, just as practice, I wanted to look up the Haynes project that the other commenter raised, and I did want to flag that, you know, I'm fairly competent at using these kinds of dashboards, and I can't find that Haynes project on any of them. And so, you know, just a flag that I'm so glad that DC Keith could pull that project off the top of her head, but I'm not seeing it in OnTheMap or in any of the search bars. And so, just wanted to validate that constituent that sometimes these dashboards are kind of hard to use and flag it for you all that some of the projects that even, you know, off the top of your head aren't populating in these places. And so just wanted to flag that for you. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks for that. We'll, we'll see what's going on with that one. Perhaps we have— we must have some issue there, so we'll look into it and get back.

Thank you. Thank you.

From an anonymous attendee, they ask, do you have any projects that are in RFP stage that may require a light— lighting consultant? We also specialize in bridge lighting. Thanks.

And yes, we do actually have projects. We'll have to verify exactly what stage that they're in. We have a program in the STIP called Light Up the Highways, which allows us to do replacements and upgrades to LEDs. So we'll keep an eye out for that on the tentative advertising list, but we do typically have projects with those components in there.

Great, thank you. We're about halfway through. I just want to remind, because I see we have 3 people people who called in, if you want to raise your hand, you hit star 9, and then to unmute, it's star 6. Just want to remind everybody that called in that they have the ability to share their comment.

Uh, Nature Richardson said, if one has already submitted public comment, can they comment again?

Yes, absolutely. Anyone can submit As many comments as you would like. Um, you could even comment on the same project more than once if there was something that you forgot to add in your original comment. Thank you.

Eric Troyer asks, just to confirm, to find and comment on any projects that are within a metropolitan planning area, people must check that with that organization's transportation improvement program. Is that correct? Yes, Eric, absolutely, that's correct, and it's certainly a point of confusion for many, so we're trying to be clear and make that available within that Volume 4, which has all of our tips incorporated by reference, so you can find some information there, and then understand what version of the TIP that we did include for the information that's in our STIP document. So yeah, please go check out the MPO websites. Right now, the Mat-Su Valley, who has just recently put out their own Metropolitan Transportation Program, they made that available for public comment.

So right now in the Mat-Su Valley area, you will see those actually within the STIP, and once they actually have their transportation improvement program approved, which will be in upcoming months, we'll have an amendment in the STIP, and so those projects will then move off of our STIP onto their TIP. But for Anchorage and Fairbanks areas, you will need to go to those respective websites.

Perfect. Thank you.

An anonymous attendee asks, is there a process for elevating projects when they are— when there are multiple emergency orders in place, i.e., Cold Bay Ferry Terminal to replace the current defunct Cold Bay dock? There are concerns of inflation costs prolonging that project.

Yes, absolutely. We program projects according to their shovel-ready status, which would be the, the case here where, you know, we know that there's an urgent need, but we still have to follow our project delivery requirements. But we can shift projects from one year to the next if it does become ready sooner than expected, or a situation occurs where it becomes an elevated safety concern, or it's blocking access along a transportation mode. So we do have that flexibility within the STIP. But here's where it'd be important to notice if you do have familiarity with a project like Colbay Doc, if we have it in the out years and you're concerned that it's not soon enough, you know, let us know the reasons why for that, because that— if it is shovel ready sooner than that, it might change how we program that project.

Yeah, if I could also follow up on the inflation aspects, if you look at the STEP and you look at the funding types that we're using for these projects, and Cold Bay is a great example, where we got a Port Infrastructure Development Program grant, but we recognize since we've even received that grant, inflation has driven the costs up. So you'll see ferryboat funds programmed there to help us deal with the inflation. So you'll see that's how we're trying to work these things through when we have inflationary issues is, you know, we're pulling from, you know, like the ferryboat program funds in this case to address that. So we are addressing that aspect as well.

Thank you, Commissioner.

An anonymous attendee asks, I saw the budget estimate for Robertson River Bridge is $325 million. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. Um, it's, it's right around $321 million, and there's some other project phases that are in there, but yes, talk about inflation. It has been extremely impactful on our bridge projects over the past 4 years especially. We've seen incredible cost escalation, so that is an accurate estimate.

Thank you.

Um, an anonymous attendee says, can you provide some context for how project number $349,000 was prioritized in the current STIP. The STIP period comparison sheet says no record for project or program in STIP period version, and I'm interested how a project of that size is routed for funding.

Taking a beat just to be sure I have the right project.

34924. Ah, this is Copper River Recreational Trail and Access Improvements, O'Brien Creek to Haley Creek.

The Volume 6 project selection, yeah, there's certainly room for adding additional information in there. So if we, we didn't include include some of the projects like this one, we'll be sure to go back and provide the history of how these projects, whether through legislative appropriation or through a congressionally delegated spending allocation, how that comes into the STIP, into our transportation program. It should be documented in Volume 6, so if we're missing that information, we'll be sure to go back before the final version and get those added in there.

Thank you, DC Keith.

An anonymous attendee asks, is there a reason Tanana Road Phase 2 wasn't included in the STIP?

We have been working to complete the Phase 2 of Tanana Road. We were looking at other funding than the STEP to complete that project, but that is a good thing to include in a comment, please, in the statewide general comments, the desire to have that project continue forward.

Steve Perrins II said, I didn't get any response from my comments. If there are a plethora of other needs in the state, why are we wasting $250 million on a project that 90% of the community in the area does not want and literally leads to nothing but swampland?

Yeah, I can answer that comment, Angelica. And yeah, sorry, in the previous time, Steve, I didn't— I'm trying— I was trying to figure out how to be live on this thing. Yeah, so of course, West Basin Access, right, access millions of acres of state lands in Alaska. We have very limited road connections to our state lands, and of course, you know, state lands for recreational purposes, all those uses are very valuable to Alaskans. And so that's really the primary purpose and need of this project.

So happy to— we have a good website. Welcome to engage with. And so that, that would be where, you know, all the current information is on the project. So hopefully, you know, if you look there, you can see that. And then of course, there's project team and staff available to engage with you further on this as well.

So thank you, Commissioner.

Victoria Rigo says, regarding project number 3-2020 and 3-2021 Polk Cutoff work that is very much needed to level out some serious heaving in the highway. The stip period comparison shows the funding being bumped from 2024 to 2027. How can we make sure this funding is applied as soon as possible, i.e., so the project doesn't continue being deferred to prevent additional traffic safety hazards. While this section of road has few year-round residents, it sees most of the visitor traffic coming from the Lower 48 and Canada into Alaska. How do locals advocate that this is a real priority?

Yeah, thanks, Victoria. And yes, we do have two projects now For this corridor, one is milepost 0 to 8, and that project we're targeting construction in 2028. And then milepost 8 to 22, another project, that one larger project has about $35 million. That'll be after 2030. But our Northern Region team is certainly aware of the needs out there.

We have the projects programmed in, and if the projects, we can get them ready sooner than that, that's, you know, part of your comment going to this project, letting us know that is really helpful. So we'll have to look at readiness. Can we get the work done sooner than that? And then if so, we'll balance out the funding needs, but Yeah, thanks for that comment.

Thank you. An anonymous attendee asks, is public comment and local sentiment still a consideration in determining whether the Yukon-Kuskokwim Connector Road moves forward, or is that project moving forward regardless? Same question for the Nenana to Chackett extension.

Yeah, I can take those. And thank you for the comment. Yeah, we definitely want to hear people's— we want the comments during the STIP for both those projects, recognizing those are, you know, the frontier road type projects where we're trying to improve access in rural Alaska. And so if there's other ideas, you know, and thoughts about what needs to be done, you know, we're always always happy to hear those ideas for improving roads, especially right now, you know, when we're— the high energy costs and some of the challenges out there. So yeah, please comment on those.

And as we go through, of course, any project that started, we go through that, the NEPA process, and go through those steps. And so that is involved in all of these federally funded projects.

Thank you, Commissioner.

At this time, it doesn't look like we have any other hands raised or any other questions in the Q&A. I believe we are keeping this, uh, meeting open until 5:30. Oh, we got another question. We got a question from Stephanie Thompson. If you would like to unmute yourself and share your question or comment, you can do so now.

Yes, thank you. This is Stephanie Tompkins, President of Alexander Creek Incorporated. Commissioner, we missed you on Friday during the meeting, but one of our big concerns, which means a lot of the tribe's concern, is that this is a connected action. This road really— this project part stops at the Big Sioux— well, 22 miles. And what Ada and their last enclosure just showed, that it's a connected action to a gold mine, which brings it to that what we're looking at will have a huge impact, a bigger impact on the whole part, which needs to be considered.

And the public needs to know that this is one road and it started off as one road and then you guys cut it. We're concerned on the impact, not only with the human impact it's going to have on our villages and tribes, over the region, the fish, the rivers, the habitat that are there, and that needs to be included before and if this goes forward. So you are there to answer our questions on Friday, and also that the APE needs to be enlarged. Because of this.

So I'd like to hear what you have to say on that.

Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. Appreciate that. Yeah, apologies for not making Friday's programmatic agreement meeting. I know we had our whole team there, so hopefully that they were able to get through. It sounded like, you know, a lot of good work was done there.

Yeah, and just for the record, this is on the West Desitna Access Project that we're going through, and we are going through the environmental, you know, the environmental process, which will culminate, you know, in the environmental document and a public review on the project. And so, you know, this is the process we're going through. It's not going to be any different than, you know, the project processes that we use for other projects. It's very much structured and founded in federal law and regulation, and so we don't go through there. But in terms of the STIP and our comment period today, no, we appreciate the comments.

This is your opportunity to document, you know, and get those comments on the record. And so that's— and then, you know, as we formally go through, we'll be formally responding to everybody's comments in writing.

Thank you, Commissioner. We have another raised hand under the name H. Pollen. Pollen, if you would like to unmute and share your question or comment.

I see you've unmuted, but we are unable to hear you.

If you want to check your mic settings.

See, your hand went Okay. Question from Megan Baxton said, to clarify, there will be a second comment period on West 2 with all environmental analysis documents available for comment?

Yeah, and that's, that's separate from the STIP that we're doing right now. There will be a public comment period devoted to the West Sacinna Access Environmental Assessment when we put that out for public review. And so there's a standard 30-day public review period and a public meeting that will go along with that.

Thank you. All right, H. Pullen, let's try this again. All right, can you hear me now? Yes, there you are. Thank you.

Wonderful. I'm, I'm Henry Pollen. I'm the harbormaster in beautiful Haines, Alaska, and I was just wanting to confirm that my comments that I sent earlier had been received, or if that was possible to do now.

How did you submit that comment? Was it in the website interactive STIP? No, I think I submitted it by email, just directly following the instructions on the STIP announcement page.

Okay, great. I'm sure someone is looking right now to see if they can find that email, but when they do, they can jump in and let you know. Okay, thank you. And I can always, if anyone wants to send me an email confirmation, that would be great. I'm just a shameless advocate for HAN infrastructure.

Thank you all for everything you do.

Yeah, and this is Justin Shelby, DOT NPF, for the record. Yes, we do have that comment and we will be responding to all the comments we've received via email.

Thank you, Justin, for confirming that.

Okay, at this time we have no other raised hands and no additional questions in the Q&A.

We will be keeping the meeting open till 5:30 just for any straggling comments or questions, but at this point, this concludes our regularly scheduled programming. Feel free to log off, but we'll be here for another 9 minutes to answer any questions or, you know, take any of the Q&A.

And it looks like we got 2 more raised hands. Oh, 3. Uh, we'll go with the first one, Victoria Rigo. If you want to go ahead and unmute yourself and share your question or comment. Yeah, hello, um, Commissioner Anderson.

My name is Michael Rigo. I've met you in person before, Victoria's husband. Um, like 80% or 90% of all, uh, All long-haul freight via truck, you know, is headed to Anchorage where it gets distributed. And it all comes through the, you know, up the Alaska Highway to Tok and then across the Tok Cutoff. And it always seems like the Tok Cutoff gets pushed on for later dates.

And it's, you know, it goes through quite a few challenging terrain and drainage issues and things along those lines. And it seems like it keeps getting pushed off. And I know we're doing, you know, projects closer to places like Glennallen, but it's a major infrastructure corridor. And I wouldn't say it's as big as the Alaska Highway, but I mean, there is quite a bit of fuel that's hauled from Haines through via that and everything going to Anchorage. Is there any plan to do more than just resurfacing 0 to 8?

And specifically, I think from about 89 Mile on the road, which is now next to Broken Bricks, and I'm sure you know Dick Schultz, and then another one specifically is between Chistochina And Kakona is another bad section. There's wrecks there every year, right? I mean, we have major tractor trailers rolling over with full vegetables, things like that, and it, it just seems to happen every year.

Yeah, no, thanks for those comments. And yeah, the Tok Cut-Off, we did a lot of work over the past 5 years on that section because, man, there's some That's like that discontinuous permafrost and just a really tough area for road, that hole, right? And as you get down on the ridge and stuff too. But there— so what we have right now is so total cutoff for 2028 for construction for 0 to 8 Mile, and that is a resurfacing. And when you see that, that's basically, you know, the repave of the surface and taking care of any, you know, replacement of culverts or drainage and things like that.

And then we are starting the 60 to 68-mile project, and that won't be for construction. It's a design start, but that's a rehabilitation. So that's where we dig down and, you know, really start fixing things there. We also have the 68 to 76-mile to get that one going because we recognize that one's starting to show its wear there, and that's also a rehabilitation. So that'll be another one where we dig down and do some deeper work on it.

And then also we have the Tow Cut-Off, the 75 to 91 rehabilitation, and that is for construction. That's a big job. It's $41 million. Right now it's in 2030, but that could get moved up if they get it ready quicker. And that's just going through the permitting and, and all the design aspects of that.

And that does include the Mabel Creek Bridge. And the Barnell Creek Bridge and the Little Toke River Bridge as well. So it'll address those bridges to make sure. Thank you. And that one follow-up question, do you think like the STIP is going to be, continue through with the change in administration?

Yeah, you know, so the STIP is our 4-year plan and it can always be amended. And so there's a process for that too, though. So if projects are in the future changed, you know, new projects put in or new project or projects taken out or adjusted, they'll have another comment period just like this. So there'll be a 30-day comment period and people have a chance to weigh in on that as well and see what, what is happening. Awesome.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate what you've done for DOT. Thanks. Thank you. Hey, Valentine, if you would like to go ahead and unmute yourself and share your question or comment, you can do so at this time.

Hi, I want to appreciate the effort that DOT is making to modernize public communication and make these plans accessible and searchable to the public, both through the online STIP and through Um, the Apex platform that, um, Commissioner Keith spoke of earlier. Um, my request is maintaining that effort through the final mile, um, with the project-specific web pages and keeping those, uh, web pages up to date. They oftentimes, um, contain a lot more specific information on projects that is, uh, useful not only to constituents but also you know, other stakeholders working nearby. For example, I was supporting a project near a DOT-managed intersection, and the roundabout project was proposed but delayed, and we wanted to minimize impacts to the public with our project that was off of a state road and kind of slow down, reprioritize our efforts elsewhere to try to match DOT's schedule. And the webpage for that project actually still shows it in final design, but it's actually like finishing up construction right now.

And our project will be on a separate schedule and impact the public, kind of an unnecessary amount of time. So just a request to keep that communication through to the project-specific efforts. They're very helpful and used.

Yeah, thank you for that comment. That is very much a real concern. I think that, you know, when we have, I don't know how many hundreds of projects, and keeping the websites updated is something— I think we have new tools now, and so I think we're going to be looking pretty hard at those to, you know, make sure we can have our websites as updated as possible as we go through. So, but definitely, you know, there is, um, it's not, uh, as forward-looking, but we do have a tool called Apex that does give you the information for the upcoming construction season. So there's that, that we recently built.

And, but yeah, I think it's a valid concern on the website. So thank you.

Thank you. And then Dixie Dayo, if you would like to unmute, you can share your question or comment. Thank you. Is it possible to extend that comment period by at least a week? As you know, it's been important subsistence time, September 14th, and then many are, who had luck, are taking care of their catch.

And also there's the week-long Alaska Federation of Natives and Elders and Youth conference. And so there's a lot of important things going on. I'm just wondering if you can extend that comment period by at least another week.

Yeah, thanks for that, Dixie. Hey, yeah, we'll look at the Alaska Federation of Natives conference and make sure we're— yeah, we're getting tied in with those things. So we'll put some thought into that for sure. It's a good point. Thank you.

Thank you, Dixie. And that is our final question.

And it's 5:30. Perfect timing. Yeah, appreciate it. Okay, well, we'll close it up and appreciate everybody, all your comments and, um, look and engagement on this. So appreciate that.

And so we will, um, wrap things up and yeah, look forward to seeing everybody's comments, um, on the website and, um, through the email or, or whatever choice you make to make your comments, but thanks for the engagement.