Alaska Legislature: Senate Transportation - September 24, 2026 11:00am

Good morning. I'd like to call this meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee to order. The time is now 11:01 a.m. We are here in the Denali Room of the Anchorage Legislative Information Office. Today is Thursday, September 24th, 2026. It is the eve of Dolly Parton Day.

Members present are myself as well as Senator Keel in the Belts Room in the most beautiful capital city of Juneau, Alaska. Senator Tobin is joining us via Teams as well as Senator Rauscher. Senator Steadman is not able to make today's meeting, but we are proud and thankful to have 4 of us participating today. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business. Please turn off or silence your cell phones.

I'd like to recognize our recording secretary Heather Ramseth in Juneau, as well as Zach Lathorn, also in Juneau, and our LAO moderators here in Anchorage, Cassie Enter and Tristan Williams. Thank you all for making things happen today. The only item on our agenda today is a presentation from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities with an update on the STIP and other items. With us here today is Commissioner Ryan Anderson, Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith, and Director Dom Pinon. One, two, or all of you are welcome to join us at the table.

Please put your names and titles on the record and begin your presentation. Committee members, when you have a question, please use the raise hand function on Teams and we can pause for questions. I would like to keep this meeting relatively streamlined.

So keep that in mind as we go forward. But don't be afraid to ask questions when they arise. Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Director, welcome. We're glad you're here. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair Bjorkman. For the record, my name is Ryan Anderson. I'm the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation. Of Public Facilities.

And with me today is Deputy Commissioner Keith, Director Don Pinone, and also in the audience is our new Communications Director, Jessica Bowers. Today, of course, we are here to speak about the— our Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, our projects that are currently ongoing and forecast for next year, and really to give the committee a good understanding of, you know, where we are at with this new 4-year program and what is coming. And what we've been up to. So, pretty excited about today and appreciate this opportunity to speak for the committee. And if it's all right, Chair, what we'll do is we'll just start.

We have a lot of slides today. We figured we would just go through the slides and, you know, as questions come up, feel free to stop us and interrupt and go from there.

Okay. We always have an acronyms list in our slide deck just for reference, especially for the public out there. As we go through this slide deck, we will do our best not to use acronyms, but this is always a challenge when we are into the funding programs and talking through our transportation programs. So really, as a broad overview, you know, we have had some very exciting things happen. Our teams have been working hard to make, you know, the most of the opportunities that have been in front of us.

You know, this year, right now with our awards, our construction contracts awards, we are at $627 million. That's a healthy amount. That's— we're not to the end of the year yet. The great news story is we have over $1 billion that we're investing in active projects right now in the Alaska Marine Highway System, including the ferry terminals, including our vessels. Just really a lot of good happening there where we've really been out there looking for discretionary grants and extra funds apart from what we normally are allocated in our Statewide Transportation Improvement Program.

One exciting thing right now that we are here to talk about is our 2027-2030 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The new STIP is out for public review. So we will give everyone a good opportunity to hear about that. And then we have a healthy construction contracting outlook for next year. $847 Million.

So also want to make sure we get an opportunity to speak to that. So with that, I'm going to pass it along to Deputy Commissioner Keith to speak to our Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Yeah, for the record, uh, this is Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith. Our 2027 to 2030 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, the STIP, is now out for public comment. Uh, we released this public comment version on September 14th.

This version will supersede the prior and currently active STIP, which is the 2024 to 2027 STIP, which was approved back in March 27th, 2024. So this new 4-year STIP from 27 to 30, it will have a 45-day public comment period. This will end on October 29th at 5:00 PM. After we have the public comment period wrap up, it takes usually 2 to 3 weeks for us to review comments, go back within the document itself, make any changes as appropriate, and then we submit the document to Federal Highways and to Federal Transit Administration for their review. Which, you know, they try to target a 30-day turnaround time for their approval, but that fluctuates depending on their available resources.

But our goal is, if we can stay on schedule, to have an approved 27 to 2030 STIP by December, mid-December. Very good. Thank you, Deputy Commissioner. I have a question on how the public engages in the comment process. If a member of the public has input or interest in a project or a plan in general or something in the STIP, what types of comments and what information can be included in those comments that would make those comments the most valuable to getting an outcome that a stakeholder or a commenter might want?

Yeah, thank you. That's an excellent question because the comments that we receive can sometimes be vague. And it helps us the most when we can have very specific details as to the nature of the concern with the project. Some commenters will give us very detailed design recommendations on a project that is of concern to them or recommendations, things to look into further. We can sometimes get what I would say to be more generalized opposition letters or support letters, which can be very common, or I would say form letters, and those are helpful too because at least people can give us comments quickly and we can get the general sense of the sentiment.

But the more specific of comment, the better for us so we can take that back to our team and incorporate it. Very good. Thank you. I would like to recognize too, for the record, that Representative Julie Calhoun has been here since the beginning of the meeting, and we were just joined by Representative Ted Eichide. Senator Tobin has a question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Perfect. Thank you.

And thank you, Deputy Commissioner Keith. It's helpful to know how the public can engage. I do have a question around some of the projects that I do not see listed in the STIP. I know that recently AMATS voted to put 5th and 6th into the TIP, the reconstruction and rehabilitation of those, and I don't see that in this version. I also noticed that some of the work that the Fairview community has been doing on its projects are also not reflected.

How might a community member go about including some of those projects that have been long worked on and sought after ensure that they're in this, this portion or this iterative of our statewide transportation plan? Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin. Yeah, excellent point. We have a couple areas where people can provide general comments on the STIP document itself. In the interactive STIP dashboard, which we can show here in a minute, there's a place for individuals to highlight a specific specific project in there or comment more broadly.

When it comes to projects that are within a metropolitan planning area or an MPO boundary area, those projects you're not going to see listed within the STIP document itself. And we still have interplay that goes on between the metropolitan planning organizations, their 3 or 4-year program, and our funding document. So when you do, you won't necessarily see some of those priority projects in the STIP itself. You will see them in upcoming TIP documents within the AMATS TIP, which is then reflected in our funding fiscal constraints section. But in either case, those comments, especially in MPO area projects, great to have those in the general comments in the STIP.

Or those comments provided to the MPOs themselves.

Do you have a follow-up, Senator?

I think that's helpful. I think I'm confused as I had thought that TIP projects were typically included in the TIP and then they were eventually included in the STIP. So I can follow up offline because I think I'm missing an order of operations here and that's on me. Very good. Senator Rauscher has a question.

Okay, I'm unmuted. Can you hear me? 5 By 5, sir. So I do have a few questions, and I don't have my video on because I'm conserving bandwidth so I don't get booted out of here. But Andrew Trexler, uh, he's the, uh, road advisory main man out in the Big Lake area.

He had sent a letter into Catherine Keith talking about the resurfacing of the Big Lake Road and a cap on existing work on the Sisseton Parkway. I was wondering if you received that email because he's wondering, because he had not received a reply yet.

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Rauscher, yes, we are, we do have Mr. Tretzler's communications about Big Lake and the additional work that we're looking to do this year to continue with the pavement preservation on Big Lake Road. But we'll be sure that that correspondence gets back with him and shared with you if you'd like.

I, I appreciate it. You know, I also have a couple other questions. Um, on the Glen Highway and other highways, um, I believe the surveyors go out, they look for a monument, they dig up the pavement, probably an 8-inch circle, then, uh, it never gets refilled, it gets larger, um, and there— and it's always in the right tire track of any vehicle going down the highway. Is there any kind of a requirement that if they do punch a hole in the pavement and they haven't been there for a good 8 months or more, that they need to fill those in? Is there— and keep them from growing?

Is there something we could do? And I guess that's the start of the discussion. I'll follow up on that. Yeah, thank you, through the chair, Senator Rauscher. Yeah, I would just encourage the constituents to continue using our problem reporter, which is a feature that we issued last year where the public can go in and point to the exact location where there is a problem, and then they can inform the department.

Our maintenance staff do take that, and they incorporate what the public is seeing in the problem reporter into our pavement and preservation program. Which is a program that we have funded in the STIP itself. And other than that, Commissioner, any other component to the question to answer? Yeah, for the record, Ryan Anderson. Yeah, through the Chair, Senator Rauscher, yeah, I mean, I think there are requirements for the surveyors.

They absolutely should be filling in those and recognizing that that does create a weakness in our asphalt. I think the— you know, it becomes a maintenance and operations responsibility. To make sure that those things are filled in. And so if, yeah, like the Deputy Commissioner says, using that problem reporter, and then I think you all know how to reach out and communicate those problems, and then we'll tackle them. But yeah, there's no requirement to, you know, completely redo a large stretch of pavement for survey activities, though.

So yeah, that would just be pothole filling, but can a community member go out on that highway and dump a bag of that junk that you can get at Home Depot and just solve the problem in a minute, or is that illegal itself?

Through the chair, Senator Rauscher. Yeah, we would—. Yeah, we would prefer that people didn't do that, that you would call our MNO folks and we will take care of it. You know, there's some liability issues, you know, whenever anyone's doing anything in our right of way. We prefer to have that to be a permitted and documented activity.

But that's, yeah, definitely M&O, our maintenance and operations folks would be the contact for that.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Very good. Senator Keel has a question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A question for the department just about timing. I usually think of the STIP as a winter into spring activity. They usually go out for notice in January, February. They get approved in, you know, April, May kind of thing.

Can you talk to us and talk to Alaskans about why the shift for this STIP to the fall?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Keel, for the record, Ryan Anderson. Yeah, we were actually hoping to get this STIP out last spring. And, you know, various things have, you know, entered into our work stream and working through the projects and all these discretionary grant opportunities, like for example, the Alaska Marine Highway System discretionary grants and the rural ferry program. So this isn't something that has a dedicated time period during the calendar year for release. One thing, you know, this is part of that rolling STIP concept where where we recognize that we want to be ahead of the deadlines of the overall STIP from our previous 4-year STIP.

So this one, you know, we are ahead of it. And so as I think a fair amount of the legislators on this call were around for the previous STIP when we were running against that timeframe, this rolling STIP idea was to make that happen. And so, yeah, we are not necessarily in a certain calendar period where, you know, we want to have that STIP completed. It's more about getting it done ahead of, you know, when the new STIP expires, the old STIP. Just to follow up, what is the department's anticipated timeframe here?

I see after public review to submit to the Feds. Is that last week in November? Is that— last week of December. Any sense of what that is supposed to be? Through the Chair, Senator Keele.

Yeah, you know, it is going to depend on the volume of comments. That is always a challenge for us. And these days people have a lot of tools for commenting. So this will be a new— I think we are going to see— I would expect we are going to see a high volume of comments. And so we will have to address those sufficiently.

That can take weeks. And then, you know, moving on to Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Highway Administration takes anywhere from— I mean, they can take up to 30 days, potentially longer for approval as well. So those are the timeframes we will be dealing with after the public comment period. Thank you. Very good.

Let's continue, please. Okay. For the record, this is Catherine Keith. In developing a new 4-year STIP, there's several partners that work with us to pull together the program. First is our metropolitan planning organizations.

That's AMATS in the Anchorage area, FAST Planning in the Fairbanks area, and MVP, Matsu Planning Organization in the Matsu area. In addition to that, we also work with Western Federal Lands Highway Division and BIA with their tribal transportation— transportation improvement programs. So there will be 5 of the TIPs that we then incorporate by reference into our STIP document. In addition to that, we work with the Alaska Railroad, whose Federal Transit Administration funds that we program into the TIP, and then community leadership themselves who have discretionary grants that may need to be included in the STIP in order for them to receive and obligate their discretionary grant awards.

As far as how to provide comments on this document, you can follow the QR code. Uh, there is a link there that gets you to the interactive STIP dashboard. And this has been a feature we developed during the last 4-year STIP that we keep, uh, iterating and improving upon. But it's a GIS, uh, it's map-based, so you can zoom in or out to look at an area of interest. You can select the projects that you see highlighted there.

You'll get the scope of the project, cost information, and at that location, you can provide a comment on that project or on the STIP as a whole. You can always email us. You can send us a text message even on the numbers that are provided here or call us and leave a voicemail, and that voicemail is transcribed and then gets added to the public record. So a lot of ways for the public, depending on your— tool of preference to let us know your thoughts on the document.

The document is structured in a similar way to the previous 4-year STIP. There are several volumes. It starts out with a narrative that talks about the STIP procedures, some of the planning context. Then it goes into the project and program deep dives where you have one project per page that goes through the financial details, schedule, scope, the lifecycle costs of the projects. The volume following that, Volume 3, is the funding and fiscal constraint section.

And this we did change significantly from the last version. For those that tried to follow our fiscal constraint in the prior version, you would have had to walk through 100 pages of 11x17 very small print graphs, and we received the feedback that wasn't very user-friendly. So we, we worked to come up with a better format where it could be more digestible to those that are interested in following the different revenues that, that we have and how we're budgeted for the projects in the 4-year STIP. Volume 4 is the tips incorporated by reference. So this is also a new section.

And I'll be very eager to hear how our MPOs in the Western Federal Lands and BIA think about these documents because we summarize the funding, the outflow of revenue from the department that is then spent in the MPO area. And while we don't program any of the projects that are in the tips, themselves, but we wanted to be able to summarize and show the flow of revenue, which is a requirement in our STIP document. The 5th volume is the public engagement, public involvement. This is a placeholder right now. When we do have those comments come in, in the version that is submitted as final, you will have all of the comments, the resolution to the comments, And then the last volume is Project Selection and Prioritization, and that allows a reader to go through and understand the origin of a project, you know, if it came from a legislative appropriation, if it was an earmark, if it came through a community transportation project scoring process.

So you can go to that document and get a bit more history if you're interested. So all of this gets to about 1,200 pages and about 34 megabytes of file to download and access. Very good. Senator Tobin has a question. Thank you, Chairman Bjorkman, and thank you, Deputy Commissioner Keith, for walking through this because I think this is a bit of a shift away from what I am familiar with, which is the TIP projects being incorporated in the STIP.

This Volume 4 is kind of a new iterative And so I'm just curious, as I see here that we have a window to provide public comment, but with 1,200 pages, and as you just mentioned, tens of megabytes of information for folks to synthesize, do— does the department think this is a long enough window for folks to kind of adjust in this new practice, in this new timeframe, and for the copious amount of information they're going to have to synthesize to be able to provide quality public feedback? Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin, yeah, we hope so, that 45 days will allow sufficient time. Uh, it's always— the public's always welcome to request additional time if they feel that that's necessary. We have done that before where we've extended public comment periods. The format of this STIP, while we did freshen up a couple volumes The format should be substantially similar enough that at least those that are familiar with this document can orient themselves.

But, uh, yeah, we would love to have as many opportunities as possible to present on the document and talk to folks that are trying to navigate through it and answer questions that way. But if, yeah, there is a request for additional time, they can certainly submit that to the Commissioner's Office.

Thank you. Please continue.

Okay. And so looking right now, we have— at the screen, we have project and program example pages. So this is, again, similar to what the prior document looked like, but we did a couple things to make it easier to understand. We have the name and scope, the location purpose, financial details all on this one page. When it comes to how we finance a project, we leverage a tool called advanced construction sometimes, where we essentially loan out future federal dollars in order to get a project completed in this fiscal year.

So that advanced construction can be a cash flow tool, but it is a financing tool, so we put that in a different section. Section this time at the bottom of the page so you can see the use of this advanced construction and when that advanced construction is to be repaid. And so it breaks it apart from the normal programming of dollars which equate to work.

So the interactive STIP, there's several features here. When you want to look at the project online, You can dig deep into by location, as I mentioned earlier, or you can filter it by project type. You can look at prior versions of the STIP, which is one of the features I like the most. So there is a location where you can download— it's an Excel document, but you can see all of the past versions of the STIP, and you can track a project's history from one STIP to the next. So just, again, helpful ways to get context.

In this STIP document, we have 216 projects and programs. And again, this is not inclusive of what we have in our TIPs, the 5 TIPs that we incorporate by reference. Altogether, there is $7.4 billion of new obligations And these are obligations that lead to work being done in some capacity. The majority of the projects are program for state of good repair work. That's 63% is maintaining our existing infrastructure.

That's followed by safety, economic vitality, sustainability, and resiliency. And of course, these are tricky categories because oftentimes a project falls into more than one of these buckets. But we try to— it does help us grasp how making sure we have a diverse portfolio.

The fiscal constraint section, which is volume 3, will have a lot of graphs and tables similar to this where you can see the origin, the revenue that we have available for the STIP documents. You can see the funding sources, and I apologize for acronyms on this page, but we have our federal highways funds, which is the lion's share of our transportation program. Altogether with the different types of federal highways funds, you know, that's well over 60%. Federal Transit Administration has the formula dollars, which, you know, the formula funds are what we get on an annual basis that we can expect to receive, and discretionary grants are those that that we either apply for or they are less certain part of our program. We receive funding through most of our USDOT federal agencies.

MARAD is the Maritime Administration. We've applied for grants for our port projects and received funding. And then we also track the state match that goes into meeting the federal portion of the dollars and local match as well. Together, um, the amount of funds coming in, uh, are $5.6 billion over the 4 years. I did want to highlight that as you look through this document, you'll see many different totals, and it may seem like the numbers just don't add up, and that's because there's different things that are added to different, uh, totals depending on the lens that you're looking at it from.

If we're just looking at like what were planned for obligations based on federal dollars, if we're not taking advanced construction out on future federal dollars, that totals $5.6 billion. So the federal dollars that we come in that we're programming is $5.6 billion. But we are using advanced construction to help us with timing of projects and to be able to front fund as needed priority projects. So that's about $2 billion over the 4 years. So when you add those together, the amount of new work that's going out there is $7.7 billion.

But then at the same time, we also have to be paying back this advanced construction throughout the 4 years, and that's what we call conversions. So when you subtract that out from the total, you get $7.4 billion. So my intent here isn't to sound confusing. But it's just there are several different ways that you can look at the program depending on the question you are trying to answer.

So across the 4 years, this chart in front of you gets you to see where the revenue is that we have and how much we have programmed against that revenue. So as you see in the first 3 years, the yellow bar is higher than the blue bar, so the planned obligations is higher than the available revenue. And we do this intentionally because there are projects, especially within the immediate year ahead, that will slip. Perhaps there's a right-of-way issue, there's a permitting delay, there's further design work that has to be done, so a project that we thought may go doesn't happen. But we need to have sufficient projects programmed within that year that we can be sure to obligate the the entirety of our program.

So because of that, we are, when you look at the fiscal constraint, over-programmed. But we do that in a balanced way so that we have enough projects within the years. And then as you see in the fiscal year '30, we are under revenue. So we're trying to, over the 4 years, be as balanced out as we can.

And when we look at— investment strategy, whether it's investment by type of project, such as good state of good repair or safety. We also pay attention to the location of the work to be sure that the— not only the regions, that they can deliver the projects that are programmed, but also that we don't have too much construction going on in one corridor at a time. So we look at it from that statewide lens as well, so you can DC Central Region has over $2.3 billion of work in the next 4 years. We have a statewide or cross-region category, and this would be for programs such as preservation of pavement and bridge preservation, which at the STIP level, it just is statewide. But we would need to go a level deeper in detail to to see what region those lie in.

So right now they're all statewide.

So in talking more about MPOs, the three ANCR— Alaska MPOs are AMATS, FAST Planning, and MVP. MVP is a new MPO, and they are right now working through their first metropolitan transportation plan, uh, which is going to give them their 25-year project view. And they're also pulling together their first transportation improvement program, which is not ready at this time to be incorporated into the STIP. As soon as those documents are complete, then we will have a STIP amendment to include their first TIP when it comes out.

And this perhaps could answer, Senator Tobin, some of your questions. But, you know, how does TIPs work with the STIP? The regional priorities as the MPOs are meeting and they're working on their MTPs as well as their TIPs, which may be of a 3 or 4-year planning horizon, those projects are being developed by the technical committees and their policy boarding committees. And then those projects come together, and depending on the, the frequency of the MPO, they're all different. They might have an amendment every couple months, but those projects then correlate with our STIP, and that we program the revenue at the STIP level to be sure that we are covering projects that are programmed at the TIP level.

And then at the same time, we're updating the projects, uh, projects which are being completed by DOT. We're providing up-to-date information to the Metropolitan Planning Organization directors on a regular basis so that those tips are updated as much as possible. So there is a lot of back and forth, and we've worked hard over the past few years to improve that process so that it was more streamlined, so we didn't have such a delay or dissonance of data. And, you know, we still have work to do there, but I think we're all happier with how they've been truing up from one to the next. But after we do have a TIP, the MPO— the MPOs approve it, the commissioner approves it, the governor approves them.

And then the STIP— once we have a TIP amendment or a new TIP, then the STIP action has to happen with the STIP amendment. And you can see this a little bit more graphically here, how this back and forth is. We just need to make sure that in our STIP document that there is enough revenue there to pro— that so that the TIPs have the funding they need to do to complete the work that's in their TIPs. So that's our main job right now with the STIP is to be sure that the TIPs are covered. And then as soon as something changes within that dynamic, if there's a new TIP, that's when we have to have a STIP amendment to account for it.

Okay, and I think with that— oh, I keep going. I have a question. Almost. When we're thinking about and speaking about just the TIP, how is that constrained from an MPV? How—.

What are the parameters? Can that metropolitan planning group, can they come up with anything? What are the kind of the sideboards and guide rails for them when developing a TIP? Yeah, thank you. It is a fiscally constrained process, so each of the metropolitan MPO planning areas have their population suballocations funding.

So there's a hard dollar amount to which they program projects to. But that being said, if there's projects that the DOT and the cities and the tribes decide need to be in the TIP, the state needs to show that revenue going into the MPO area. So the revenue does need to be demonstrated to be available. And we just do that through the communication process of developing the TIP. So we can't necessarily just put whatever we want in the TIP.

It has to be constrained. And if it's above the available revenue to that area, then the state needs to demonstrate that funding being available for the projects that we want in the TIP. Okay. And is that to say then an MPO has— a certain amount of money, a budget that they need to stay within? Is that a collaborative effort between the MPO and the state about what the needs of that area are?

How does that work? Yeah, absolutely. It is budgeted, and it comes from Federal Highways and Federal Transit Administration, where they establish dollar amounts for those population groups. There's a population of over 200 $100,000 for the Anchorage area, and then there's another pot of money for $50,000 to $200,000 for MVP and FAST. So they program to those available funds.

And as far as priorities, it is just in conversation with those on the technical committee and the policy committee and through public process, you know, what gets included in those TIPs for that dollar amount. Very good, thank you. Please continue. So when we look at, speaking of money, how much is spread out, the investment that goes into the urban areas. AMATS, as makes sense, has over $500 million in the 4 years, and then FAST and MVP each have about $240 million.

And these are projects where we're again in our STIP showing this revenue going into these areas, but the projects themselves are programmed in the TIPs. But it shows you the investment that's happening at the— through the federal transportation program.

In addition to the population, the suballocations that I mentioned that are targeted for the specific populations in the MPOs. They're often projects that the state is using our statewide funds for projects that are within the MPO area. So we may have our National Highway Performance Program funds that we typically use on our national highway system, like the Seward Highway is a good example, or we have other funds that we know there's project needs in the urban areas that we need to add extra funding to. And so this is a process in which that happens. We'll show this additional funding going to the urban areas and then they get programmed in the tips.

But the amount of funding above and beyond those population suballocations is listed out here.

Okay. For the record, Ryan Anderson. So now we'll dive into a little bit more outside of the MPOs, the Municipal Planning Organizations, and into the state of Alaska funding that we work with annually. One of our biggest programs that you'll see in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program is the Pavement and Bridge Preservation Program. And what you'll see is, you know, we'll have projects in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program and we'll have programs.

And we are, in some cases, we are allowed to group projects underneath programs and not have to list the programs in the STEP because of the nature of the type of work. And there is some rules that we have to follow. But what that does is it allows us a lot of flexibility in areas where, you know, things start falling apart on us. You know, the pavement and bridge preservation funding, we can move quicker on. Because if there is changes made, we track those through a separate project listing and not in the STEP and through the STEP requirements.

So in this STEP, we have about $721.7 million in these types of program projects. You can see the majority of that is in construction work. There is also utilities and design and right-of-way obligations and then some future projects. Selections as well. So the types of projects that you'll see coming out of this program— so we have, you know, these long corridor projects, local road networks, the Elliott Highway, for example, up north of Fairbanks, milepost 73 to 106.

That's one that's a pavement preservation project. And we're just going to go out there, we're going to fix the road. We don't add any extras to it. We can fix drainage structures, those types of things. For example, Petersburg, and we have a chip seal package for 2027.

And then, of course, Dalton Highway is another one where we're working just to repair that surface because that surface degrades on us.

But we also do more than pavement with the pavement and bridge funds. Drainage, like the whole Piway, will have culvert replacements. That will be preservation funds. With the bridges, you know, we'll do a lot of— you'll see our folks out when we're doing those bridge deck preservations, you know, redecking bridges and whatnot, that comes out of these funds. And we'll even go ahead and resurface bike paths, walking paths, pedestrian paths.

So that's— Juneau Glacier Highway is on the list for that one as well.

Then we get into the Highway Safety Improvement Program. So that's another program, and so you won't see the specific projects in the STIP, but we do have an approved program document that we make publicly available. For this 4-year STIP, there is approximately $391.8 million in what we call the HSIP, the Highway Safety Improvement Program. And you can kind of see how those funds are allocated by year as we go forward with that program.

This is one of those programs, of course, that You know, when we're trying to fix safety problems. And so it's a really important program for us, whether we're in the Anchorage area, the Matsu area, or the Fairbanks area. And so we are allocating, you know, a significant amount of funds in our urban areas to— and these are things where we will, you know, reconstruct intersections so there's better visibility, replace lighting, you know, make sure the crosswalks and things things are adequate out there. Just those good— a lot of times you'll see the roundabout projects are coming out of this highway safety improvement program.

Then we also have our bridge portfolio. And this is one we've really strengthened over the past years. And there's good reasons for that, just because there's been bridge fund— dedicated bridge funds available. And we've been successful with discretionary grants. And so you can see $2.1 billion in new planned obligations over the 4 years.

A lot of that's road corridors with bridge work, but we also have just bridge packages. We do work on just fish passage. We have a fair— projects dedicated to that, to upgrade, you know, old drainage structures to make sure that we're accommodating fish passage. And then some of it goes into the trail and pedestrian links as well.

You'll see where you look across the years, you'll kind of see how the construction programming is— goes. You'll see in 2030, you know, that's really where our big focus is, and that's because we have some really big bridges that we're working on, and we'll get into those in a little bit. But Alaska Highway, we have those World War II bridges that we're working working hard to replace. Very good. Senator Rauscher has a question.

Senator Rauscher, you are still on mute. Okay. I am unmuted now. I am sorry. No worries.

So the question that I have, since we are on bridges, and, you know, District 29 probably has 300 miles of your state highway in it. The, uh, and I believe you guys have been talking for a couple years about a bridge over there at Muddy Creek, or wherever you want to call it, near Victory Road where, um, Cleve lives. And the mud is encroaching in on his property. It's been doing that since we— we meaning the state and the DOT— diverted, uh, the mud from going across the road and now it goes alongside the highway and onto his property. And we've been talking about a bridge for a couple of years, and I'm sure every year it gets more costly in ideology.

But either way, is that— is that a reality sometime soon?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Rauscher. Yeah, that one's in— that one's programmed. I believe it's in 2027. Because we recognize that that's becoming— there's a real challenge there, not only, you know, from the bridge perspective, from the maintenance perspective. So we are working that one.

We've also— I think we're working on a discretionary grant as well to see if we can, you know, it scores so well in some of these discretionary grant programs because of that problem with the mud coming through there. So yeah, we're absolutely working that one. Is there any kind of remediation we could do for the mud that has entered into that guy's property? Or how do we do it? Do we chalk that up to, oh well, or is there something we could do for him?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Rauscher, yeah, as part of the project, I mean, that's really, we're mostly, these projects come with the funding to do those types of things with the mitigation. So that would just need to be something that we look at. You know, with that project. And, and I do wanna thank you guys. I mean, it's 300 miles.

We've had an awful lot of work going into Valdez, whether it's culverts or whether it's, you know, upgrades, bridge resurfacing. And now we're working on the Glenn Highway for miles and miles up there by Long Lake. I really appreciate the fact that you're, you're paying attention. We took a ride together, you and I, and We looked at some of these trouble spots, but I do want to call out the Moose Creek Bridge again. It's a— it's kind of a 25-year-old project which has been stalled out a few times for federal considerations on, I guess, artifacts.

But either way, we— is it starting all over at ground zero or Or can we say no, this project is 25 years old? Yeah, through the Chair, Senator Rauscher, yeah, that's a great one on Moose Creek. That is a challenging one. I know from that highway corridor's perspective and the engineering perspective, to straighten that curve and just have a bridge that would just provide that straight stretch through there is the preferred, from that perspective. I know, you know, we have some— we are working through some cultural resource issues as we have been, but we do want to take a new approach on that.

And we do feel like, you know, having a new start here, you know, you will see the money. There is the funds in the STIP to get that thing going again. But I think what we want to do is make sure everybody is on track for the same idea before we start and then go forward from there. So we will be reaching out to a lot of different folks, just recognizing that, you know, there's the locals in that area, but also we have the folks like down in Copper Center that are driving the Glenn all the time, and we want to make sure we're, you know, taking in everybody's consideration there. Thank you.

And it is an artery coming in off of Canada to Anchorage in a lot of respects. That's a— and from the port perspective, out of Valdez going into the Anchorage area and the Matsu Valley. So it's, it's just that the bridge was condemned and it's still in existence. So I know you've shored it up a little bit. I'm not sure how much, but I do consider it a priority and so do the people living there.

Okay, thank you. Please continue. Thank you. So— Yep, thank you. Yep.

The next slide is just— these are the Alaska Highway crossings. So there's actually 3 major bridges. 2 Of them were built for World War II during the Lend-Lease Program. And so you can see they're long bridges, you know, they're well over 2,000 feet. And so they are expensive bridges to replace.

We were successful with a discretionary build grant for two of them, so that helps with the overall funding that we're programming for them. But those will be a big focus on the Alaska Highway.

And then you can see we also are working through programming for projects, of course, in Ketchikan, the Water Street Viaduct. That's a big big focus for us, and we're going to continue working through that. A new project start for this year is the Chilitna River Bridge, and that's the one on the Parks Highway that always has been a struggle for the heavy loads for the trucking industry. The Nenana River Bridge at Moody, that's the one just south of Healy. It's a big bridge, but that's one that's starting to show its age, and so we want to make sure we address that.

And then we have the Snooke River Bridge in Nome that we're working as well. So you'll see those. One thing I would just bring up on this, we've had some questions about why isn't the Juneau North Douglas Crossing in the statewide transportation improvement program. And the reason is because we obligated those funds for design. There was a discretionary grant and an earmark already.

And so what we show in the STIP is what is to be obligated, so that's why you The project's active, you just don't see it in the study. Mr. Chairman. Senator Heil. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Commissioner anticipated my question.

So this is a 4-year look forward. Is it then the department's— am I understanding the department right that you don't anticipate needing another dime for the next 4 years of work, or Should I understand that last statement as you'll spend the federal money and stop? Yeah, through the Chair, Senator Kiliak, great question. I mean, I think what we're saying right now is we don't— we know that we're headed into the environmental phase. We know it's unknown, like, we need to do a good finance plan really to understand the project, working closely with the City and Borough of Juneau.

And then as we move forward, you know, we can always add amendments for what we find. And so I don't think there is any intent to start something that stops here. I think it is just there are some unknowns here that would be hard to program until we get into this environmental phase and understand the project better.

Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate that.

I think that, you know, it's unlikely to take a full 4 years to get to the next step, the next step with E. And so, it's a little concerning not to see any dollars programmed here, even into the furthest out years of this TIF. You mentioned the local government support. That's pretty strong and has been consistent for a pretty long time. I was actually at a comprehensive plan revision meeting last night. And in one of the visions, one of the scenarios being explored to be called out potentially in the comprehensive plan is for future growth on that island that would have a second access to it for emergencies, for safety, for economic development.

And so the idea that this that there might not be executive branch interest in pursuing that piece of infrastructure is a little concerning. I'd sure like to see that go back in.

Thank you. Very good. Please continue. Okay. For the record, Ryan Anderson.

So this is the slide on— we have these also, these resiliency projects that we work through. This shows a $223 million investment. $1.2 Billion in investments, 17 projects. You'll see rock slope stabilization is one that we're really focused on. We've definitely taken note of a lot of rockfall along our highways over the past years, and we want to make sure we're proactive in addressing that.

And you can see how it's programmed over the 4 years. Some of the types of projects you'll see, you know, these are western communities, Elam, Gullivan, Koyak, Hooper Bay, Shishmaref. You know, we have a fairly decent amount there planned through grant opportunities that we've been successful in receiving. And then Kachemak Bay Drive in Homer has been a focus for us because of its status as a tsunami evacuation route. And we're also looking at the— a resiliency project there too on the spit to make sure we get that road hardened and prepared for storm events.

And then North Douglas Highway in Juneau, we have a rockfall mitigation project. And then the Talkeetna Spur Road in Talkeetna, that was a recent flood event just this past summer. You know, we're wanting to make sure that, you know, we're keeping that road, and we will keep that road in good condition. So we're working through those types of projects as well. Thank you, Commissioner.

I have a question in regard to community access Lots of folks in Nikiski are concerned about the advancing bluff erosion about mile 25 of the Kenai Spur Highway, very near the intersection of South Miller and the Spur. The bluff, the front of that bluff now is probably within 40 feet of the white line. Pretty, pretty close. What I've noticed that there's a Kenai Spur Highway reroute for that portion of the road now in the proposed STIP. What can people expect for a timeline on that project where it's looking like if we don't do something soon, that road is going to be occupying the inlet?

Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, yeah, great question. And I know you've been very articulate about that challenge over the years here and making sure that we're aware of it. That has prompted us to do regular monitoring of that slope. And so we are making sure that we understand, you know, the rate of encroachment and how that's holding up. And recognizing that that is, you know, this is something that is happening.

And so we started the project to relocate, to realign the highway. So once the STIP is approved and we can start the project, I would anticipate anticipate, you know, this winter we would be having public meetings about what is the best alignment because the realignment will have impacts on property. And so we want to make sure we are doing a good job addressing that. We also have to take into account the potential future plans for gas line infrastructure in that area. So we also want to do a good job with that.

And so we thought that this— starting this project, you know, we feel like it hasn't advanced— you know, the rate of advance allows allows us to go through this process and do a good job figuring out where the right alignment is and move forward. But we also recognize if things happen and things start accelerating, then we accelerate too. And so— and we have a good relationship on the Federal Highway Administration. You know, they recognize— they've been up to Alaska just this past year. I think we've— you know, we had our visit by the FHWA— Federal Highway Administration administrator.

They recognize some challenges we have up here, and so they've been helping us out. Very good. The Nokiski community, folks who've been around for a while would clearly remember a large community meeting in which the last iteration of the AKLNG project held a meeting around what locals would refer to as a spaghetti map of potential reroutes. I think there were some preferred alternatives in that map, and myself, as well as many community members, would be happy to discuss those with you in regards to that project, but as well as specifically how do we avoid impacts of bluff erosion there near South Miller. I'm happy to do that.

We've seen the bluff advance significantly faster in recent years. That's the perception of many in the community, with a house that had been on that bluff falling into the inlet this spring in May, um, got a lot of people's attention as that bluff continues to advance. So not so good. Yeah, but we are appreciative that that project is in the STIP. Yeah, thank you, Chair.

And yeah, happy to engage on that one for sure. Please continue. And for the record, Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith. We're going to talk a little bit about our corridors right now. So you can see there's 14 of our major corridors that are listed.

And we break out the investment by corridor just to give a sense of the distribution along some of our highways where a lot of the work programmed in the STIP is going. This accounts for for over $2.9 billion.

Of that $2.9 billion, there's about $560 million that's programmed within those MPO, Metropolitan Planning Organization, boundaries. So this is Anchorage, Matsu, and Fairbanks areas. So our state responsibilities continue on these interstates and highways even when they go through the metropolitan planning areas. We have projects in the Glen, the Seward Highway, the Parks, and the Steese that are both. You'll see a split of portion of the project may be listed in the STIP, and then another portion of the project is listed in the MPO TIP.

So as the public trying to see, you know, the continuity of projects, it can certainly be confusing. We tried to address this a little bit in that Volume 4, the TIPS incorporated by reference volume, to give the public a chance to see in one place where the work kind of starts and stops. Like the Glenn Highway projects that will be happening, you know, we— you need to look in order to see the full sequencing both at the MPO TIPS and the STIP. So our public information that we put out about these projects, we try to make it as comprehensive as possible and so that the public knows who to go to talk to if they have questions or concerns about the project. Very good.

Senator Tobin has a question.

Chair Bjorkman, thank you, Deputy Commissioner Keith. That's helpful. I've been struggling with trying to see I'm excited to see the holistic view of these projects, particularly the Glen, as that's the project that I have a lot of interest in making sure that folks are able to get to and from downtown Anchorage safely and to get to work and such. I'm just curious as I'm struggling to find where some of the Glen reconstruction is in this STIP. I know how necessary it is as there is some projections about the bridge issues, and of course with some of the weak spots and potential sinkholes that may be imminent.

So if you could just help me maybe offline kind of see that holistically, I am struggling valiantly to figure it out in this current iterative of this, of the STIP.

Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, Senator Tobin. Yeah, thank you. We can absolutely follow up with you on that, and I think on all these corridors it would be in the best interest of everyone for us to have the corridor view to see the schedule both within the TIP and the STIP. We can put those together.

The Sterling and Seward Highway—. Senator, one second. Senator Tobin, did you have a follow-up?

No, that would be very helpful if we were able to kind of pull that out. Specifically and provide that information. So I'm very thankful to Deputy Commissioner Keith for doing that for us. Excellent.

Sterling and Seward Highway corridors, we have kind of ongoing projects that were in the prior STIP still moving forward over the next 4 years. The Seward Highway safety— safer Seward Highway project, we have one stage right now currently programmed to begin in this next fiscal year. This is $199 million. In addition to that— well, the amount of money for the Safer Seward is— sorry, it's about $125 million. But there's other projects in— along that corridor, including the Tudor Interchange, 36th Avenue, some of these projects which have been ongoing that are programmed in the AMATS TIP.

The Sterling Highway milepost 45 to 60, the Cooper Landing bypass, has some major obligations throughout this 4-year period. There's a total of $235 million of new work programmed over this 4 years with another major stage beginning in FY '27. Other projects along the Sterling include the Sterling safety corridor. We're hoping to have that obligated even at the end of this fiscal year, of which there's days left. But we're going to be having the full project now as one stage versus breaking it up into separate years.

Very good. I think we have multiple questions on this slide. I'll ask one question first and then I'll go to Senator Senator Tobin, and I think I saw Senator Rauscher with his hand up, too. In regard to that specific project, the Sterling Highway Safety Corridor in one step, could you tell us more about that? I know that we have a number of impacted properties regarding driveway access as well as left-turn access along that alignment.

How will that change communication and the planning process around who gets access where?

Yeah, thank you. The breaking it up from two stages to one, we hope will assist in the process by making some of the impacts a little less longer-lasting. But the process as far as how we plan for access, that won't change. Change, but it will be more efficient bidding and the delivery itself will be— rather than having— we actually had 4 total stages at one point that were happening, but making it one will alleviate, we hope, a lot of the inconveniences that that would otherwise cause. But the process for constructability and communication with the public, that would be the same as it was otherwise.

Excellent. When then do you expect the total design of that project to be complete, and when should the public expect major construction to begin in that safety corridor and end? We would expect the construction to begin in FY27, this next summer. Very good. And when, would the design portion— so when would the design and people know if they are going to have left turn access or driveway access, when would that portion be complete?

Yeah, might be best to provide a project update following this. Very good, that's totally fine. And when construction begins next summer what's our total timeline for project completion? I would expect a 2-year delivery is what's currently planned. Very good.

Thank you. Last question on this. I, I noticed in STIP Amendment Number 6, you guys are looking to obligate fully funds to complete that project in one step, like you just mentioned. Do you see any potential if issues or barriers to that happening before October 1? Yes, certainly.

At this point, the federal systems are shut down, and so some of the processes we do through obligations is on paper. So it is, you know, maybe Director Purnon has an update for us on this. But if not, that would be the primary concern is just the federal processes or within days of making it work. So, understood. Director Panon?

I'll provide an update, uh, within this meeting. I'll have an update on that. Excellent. Very good. Senator Tobin?

Uh, thank you, Chair Bjorkman. Uh, and, you know, I'm just going to talk a little bit about the, the Seward project, as I think there has been a lot of back forth, and I would love if Deputy Commissioner Keith, if you could just kind of expound a little bit about some of the changing dynamics. I know there has been conversations about a re-envisioning of the project scope, some conversations about public input that many have been advocating for, conversations at AMATS. Additionally, and you may be aware of, there was a recent FOIA request where some information was provided and some information passed along about conversations that have been happening internally about the size of the project and how it doesn't necessarily align with some of the data that we've received. And so I'd love to provide you just an opportunity here, and if not, we can always request an additional hearing specifically on this project, as it is very expansive in scope, and I want to ensure that the public is being brought along in the process about the reasons why and the conversations that are happening behind closed doors within decision makers about the, the need and the drive of this project?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin. Yeah, there has been some excellent healthy dialogue in the past few months and certainly over the past year about this project, but over the last two days we have held some public open house meetings. There was one in person at the library two days ago, and then there was— this was followed up with a virtual open house yesterday. And through the joint planning process between the municipality and the state in AMATS, you know, there's been dialogue there about the best path forward for this project and the portion that's within the MPA, the Metropolitan Planning Area boundaries. So as part of that process, we have committed to making sure that we had open, um, transparent information, uh, sharing with the public to be sure that the information that we were working with was available on the website and that the data that was being used in studies was, was available on the website so we could all be looking at the same thing.

So there's been a lot of work done. Uh, we've updated the website with a story map, which is much more user-friendly because we don't feel we had done a very good job in our communications talking about the purpose and need of the project. And so our hope was to share through these last couple meetings where the project is at, some of the reasoning behind design decisions, and then from there get that opportunity for the public to provide feedback on different portions of the project. And we've reopened our environmental document public comment period. So the stage that the project is at right now, it's perfect timing for this— these conversations to take place.

So we're incorporating this next 30 days public comment period. The project team will take that back, incorporate those comments into the environmental document, and then move forward as appropriate. So yeah, we're excited for this opportunity, um, and having the fresh look at the project, and, um, just we'll keep moving forward as we do through the project processes.

Thank you, thank you for that information. And I just want to clarify, as I, uh, I've seen that there has been some email communications about this being, uh, a state-funded project before leading this federal NEPA process. And, you know, we've learned a lot together, I think, over the last 4 years, and particularly some of the things that happen around Cascade Point and focusing on a state-funded project before moving it into conversion to be federally supported. And I just want to know, what is the intent of this Stage 1 for the Safer Seward Project? Is it, is it the, the plan of the Department of Transportation to begin this as state-funded and eventually convert it into a federal project, or are you slowing down that process so that we can hopefully not experience the pushback that we received in Cascade Point and then some of the consequences of that choice?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin. Yeah, a couple of things had happened when we went through our last STIP process when the Safer Sewered Highway, which was in the AMATS Metropolitan Transportation Program and in the TIP that had gotten taken out over public frustration with the design. So when that did get taken out, funds that we had because it was a federal project were at risk for not getting paid back. So a lot of the conversations had been about the risk that does happen if the federal participation is removed, but yet we we've already been engaged in a project and spending those federal dollars. So part of that is that the state, if situation, we don't come full circle, that we would be at risk.

But we had committed to making some critical safety improvements along the corridor, like the left-hand turn lane at McHugh Creek. And the only way to move forward with that project in order to get that on some of the signage work that we wanted to do this summer was through utilizing our state funds, which we had available in a similar appropriation for this. So moving forward, Stage 1, it certainly all needs to be federal funding, but a couple of those crucial safety improvements that we had committed to completing this year, the only way to do that was to leverage our other appropriation for that.

I hope that answers your question. Senator Tobin.

Thank you, and I'm sure we'll be having many more conversations about this particular project over the, the course of the coming years. I am curious about having those funds available, where they came from, or what other projects were not pursued because these steps were already in progress. And we know that there's a limited pot of dollars, and so when one thing gets prioritized to be used with state resources, another does not get those, those dollars allocated. And that is a conversation we can have offline, as I don't want to take up much more time on this particular project, as I know there's many more slides for us to go over.

Thank you, Senator Tobin. Yeah, I think I'll put in an or here for the senators whose whose district encompasses much of that project. She has heard from her constituents as well as myself and many of our colleagues significant continued pushback on the Seaford Seward Highway project design, limitation of, of access to trailheads, mountains, other things that people are very used to accessing from the highway. And so There certainly are some major concerns and large, very strongly held feelings about that project, which I think need to be explored further.

Let's see, Senator Rauscher has a question.

Yep, thank you again, Chair. Through the Chair, I— earlier Commissioner Anderson had mentioned rockfall projects and mitigation. But I don't remember him stating the Long Lake area. Now that area has just gone over some— they've done a lot of work up in that area, and I appreciate the fact that that's happening. There's a couple questions regarding guardrail that's not there yet.

Pumping, pumping is a, I guess, a description of when you have water that runs underneath new pavement or old pavement, and it's Actually, when they roll the pavement, it starts to break the pavement up, and that's already happening on the first layer. And then, of course, there's the state trucks which go to work with the V-plow scraping rocks off to the side still. So I was wondering if you could just address, while we're in safety corridor mode, that those particular items when it comes to that project right there. Rockfall has been there since '64, 1964. Before.

So I'm just trying to get a better handle on what our— what we're going to do there.

Yeah, for the record, Ryan Anderson through the Chair, Senator Rauscher. Yeah, we do have a sequence of projects. And so that is one of them. So over the next several years, you know, we'll continue with those improvements through that Long Lake corridor as well as, you know, doing the rockfall mitigation. And then we also— you will see in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program is to continue working on the realignment, recognizing it is a little bit similar to Moose Creek.

We need to kind of take that step back and make sure everybody is 100% on how to move forward with the realignment before we start through any detailed design on that as well. So we do recognize the long-term for that corridor still is that realignment.

Is that going to be placed this year where it's still missing? I mean, next year or maybe late this year? Yeah, for the time— let me get back to you on that, Senator. I'll write that one down and we'll get back to you on that one for the construction timing. Yeah, a lot of it has been replaced.

I appreciate that, but not all of it. And that edge is still pretty precocious when you're trying to navigate around there. So I thank you. Thank you. Very good.

Thank you, Senator Rosser. We're going to take a brief at ease.

We're back on the record. It is 12:21 PM here in the Anchorage LIO. Resuming our presentation from the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, we have with us Commissioner Ryan Anderson, Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith, and Director Don Purnon. Thank you for joining us. Please continue.

Okay, and for the record, this is Katherine Keith. We're going corridor by corridor through some of the primary investments, both of parks Parks and the Glenn are also seeing a large amount of work being done within the next 4 years. We're continuing the work in the sections between milepost 99 and 163 on the Parks, and on the Glenn Highway, there's work both within the Anchorage area and the Matsu area on a variety of projects.

Moving through.

On the Dalton Highway in Elliott, we're focusing on doing what we can to improve these key freight corridors. The Dalton Highway has several projects that you can see listed out here. We're continuing on with work in 109 to 144, which has had various stages in past years. We're starting up work on that milepost 0 to 9. And we have several preservation projects, one of which is new this year where we're working to have the ability to stockpile material along the Dalton in the case of— so that when we do have washouts or projects that are urgent along the Dalton as it's known to wash out, then at least we'll have materials there that we can quickly restore access.

Can I say something on that? Yes. Yes, for the record, Ryan Anderson. So for the Dalton Highway, this one is really important because with the rescission of the Public Land Order 5150, that allows us to really start acquiring additional material sites through that entire middle section of the corridor which was formerly BLM and we were really challenged to get the free use permits out of BLM in the past. So now that opens up.

This opportunity to really be able to stockpile material and bring down our costs for maintenance on that, that highway.

So freight routes on the interior include the Steese Highway, Richardson Highway. We have some ongoing projects, the Steese-Johanson interchange, which has been ongoing. And then we have along the Richardson several bridge replacements and other reconstruction projects happening throughout the corridor.

You can look at a couple other highways as continental gateways. The Alaska Highway, we have projects ongoing, one of which is following up on our Shakwak Treaty, our agreement with Yukon government to maintain the Alaska Highway. And we have some permafrost repairs that are being done in the Yukon right now. Part of this was funded through a RAISE grant received from Federal Highways for, for this work. We have some additional resurfacing projects going on in Tok Cutoff.

There's some new mileposts that are listed in this 4-year STIP. And additional stages of the Klondike Highway reconstructions.

Our coastal highways, the South Tongass and Ketchikan and Chiniak Highway, these have been ongoing projects in the prior STIP that carry forward into the next 4 years, and we're just continuing on with the stages of construction.

And then we get to the waterways. For the record, Don Pannone. And just briefly going back to the Stirling Highway safety corridor, I was able to confirm we did receive the authority to proceed for the $127 million of construction and utilities work. Moving to the waterways investment of our 4-year STIP, we plan on obligations of just over $1 billion for vessels, terminals, and ships. Shipyards, improvement to systems on our ferry system, to the customer experience and the business operations, and then $80 million in ports and barge landings and $3.2 million in condition surveys.

Moving to the next slide, $418 million of those investments are in our vessel replacements and refurbishments, the LaConte replacement, at $191 million. A lot of these projects are directed and are part of the 2045 Long Range Plan for the system, for the overall ferry system. The La Conte replacement at $191 million includes the recent $153 million Rural Ferry Grant Award that we received in August. We have planned for a High Efficiency Commuter Ferry at $77.6 million with construction in '28. Mainliner replacement from a prior rural ferry grant.

We've got $81 million programmed of Federal Highway rural ferry— or ferryboat program funds of $80 million. This ferry refurbishment is for needs identified within our fleet conditions surveys that we do annually that identifies work that the aging vessels need. We've got $41.4 million for Columbia modernization. That's firefighting equipment, electronics, upgrading replacement of windows and other things that that ship needs to continue sailing. And then $15.2 million for the Inter-Island Ferry Authority.

They are a partner of DOT. And they run the route to Hollis from Ketchikan, have a vessel that's roughly 20 years old. So $15.2 million for that system. For terminal and shipyard investments, we've got $379 million. The one here, Cascade Point, is $85.5 million.

That does include the recent award we got for the $37 million from the rural ferry program. This project is for the the terminal and waterside facilities that will be constructed after Stage 1. We have $70 million programmed for the Cold Bay Terminal, $42 million for CAKE, $31 million for Yakutat, and a number of other terminal projects. And 7 of these projects will— we plan to be in construction next year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Akil has a question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to talk specifically on the 7 named terminals you list there at the bottom. I think we had a long conversation in February about Cascade, and we don't need to rehash that today. But among the 7 terminals named, I wanted to start by thanking the department for how fast and how effectively you moved on the Skagway Terminal when that transfer bridge abutment was not sound. I especially want to thank you for closing it the day after I drove over it and not the day before.

But that's just a personal note. In the STIP, we have a substantial amount programmed primarily in out years for Scagway Terminal or Dock Modifications. And there isn't anything describing what we're talking about there. There are a lot of needs there. That float has sunk.

That float has been redecked once. It still has visible steel popping through the concrete. And you're gonna get a trip and fall pretty quick here 'cause there's so many holes in it.

And our vessels can't really dock in there when the wind's up. La Condesa is old and Hubbard is tall. Are we talking about putting some sort of catcher's mitt there? Are we talking about replacing that float that currently sits on all those chains? What are we looking at doing there for that Skagway Terminal in the long term?

Through the chair, Senator Keel, for the record, Ryan Anderson. Thanks for that on the Skagway float and the emergency repairs. We had some great contractors there. Our teams just went out there and we just decided we got to get this done and we got to go as fast as we can. One of the challenges, just kind of for people's awareness with those types of projects, we did have some federal funds that we could have used there, but because of the chain lead times, because that's a chain, that thing is anchored in with chains.

We couldn't get Buy America, Build America, you know, chains for 8 months. So we ended up just having to go, you know, order chains and get it done as fast as we could. So that was a relief to get that done and even get that done right before the Klondike Race, which was even better. We recognize that that is, that's an old facility. Yeah, when we have talked with Director Torga and others about what is needed there, it really is a pile-supported dock.

And so that is the route we want to go. What you see in the STIP right now is the funds to start the design. Again, we hate to put numbers out there yet. I mean, I have heard numbers anywhere from $60 to $90 million for that facility for a new dock. But we need to do the work, I think.

Before we— the engineers are comfortable with providing an estimate on it. So that's really what those funds are for is we get it, you know, we get it started and see where we end up estimate-wise. And then we've been having some really good luck with these grant programs, you know, and I know Skagway has been really a good partner in some of these programs and going after funds. And so that always helps.

Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks again for the fast work when something broke.

Thank you, Senator Keel. Commissioner and Director Pannonne, I know that the community of Yakutat, they're concerned about really their lack of ferry service. I think they may have had one ferry call in the last 3 years or so. So I think, you know, the senator from that district Mr. Pritchett couldn't be here today, but that community is concerned. I think when they see projects and priorities of a thing like Cascade Point funded before they get their ferry situation figured out, and maybe it's not the same bucket or maybe it is, what is our plan moving forward with smaller communities that haven't seeing ferry service, getting them restored to some ferry service in— do we have a line of sight on that?

Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, for the record, Ryan Anderson. You know, this came up. I was in Cordova yesterday, and the topic is the ferries and their service, because they are going to have a longer outage this winter because of just the overhaul time frames of that old Aurora ferry, you know. So this is definitely something a lot of communities are focused on. We have a plan, you know, we have that long-range ferry plan, and it's a good plan.

You know, we're pursuing it. We're already accomplishing, I think, with the LaConte replacement, that's a good step forward. The need for a new mainliner for AMHS is a real need, but that's an expensive ship. You know, that's $400 million plus. And so that's really Following the plan and if we can continue to find funding sources for these projects, I think is important.

We did, you know, we are working Yakutat in. We did go to Yakutat this year and we did across Gulf. We went to Whittier. We even went over to Homer and out to Kodiak with the Kennecott this year. So that part, we're able to do that now because we're stabilizing things as part of the plan.

And so we're just going to continue. We want to, you know, You know, when I was talking to Director Katanga yesterday, we think we're going to be at a 99% uptime, like, reliability rate this year for the ferries that are running. And that's a big part of what our goals were for stabilizing. So then we start, you know, moving forward. So I think we're on— and it's a slow track, you know, to get this back forward.

But I mean, with the billion dollars of investments here, I think we're on a really positive trajectory. Okay. Very good. Senator Rauscher has a question.

Yeah, thank you through the chair. So, uh, Commissioner, I've been, uh, you know, been representing Valdez for quite a long time, and, um, I know the concern of ferries is also a big one for Valdez, and I believe right now the schedule is zero for sailings. Are there more vessel sailings between Valdez, Cordova, Whittier, this winter, kind of hamper school activities, and it will also shoulder the tourism season there. And I think essentially nothing between November and May. So I'm wondering, is there anything else planned at all?

Yeah, through the chair, Senator Rauscher. Yeah, great question. That is a challenging one for us just because of the condition of the Aurora and the need for the overhaul. Extensive overhauls. We have, you know, pushed the overhaul start back 2 weeks to accommodate some of the— there were some pretty big school events happening in that region to get a little more time in there.

You know, they've even been looking at the Testimena coming over for a couple runs, but what we run into is it's just those docks won't fit all of our vessels. And so, you know, we have the projects, we have a dock a terminal project in Cordova. We have one in Tutitlik. We have one in Chenega. We just got to get them built.

And ultimately, you know, once we can move those Alaska-class ferries up, one of, you know, whether it's the Hubbard or the Taslina, that opens the doors so we don't have to go through these extensive outages. So we do have a plan. But with the Aurora in the shape it's in, you know, we do need to get that work done so that it runs reliably the next year. Is there an ETA —on that? Through the chair, Senator Rauscher, well, for the projects, yeah, I mean, some of those projects are starting this summer.

It will be a 2- to 3-year, you know, construction horizon to get those done.

One thing we have been discussing, though, is, you know, if Cordova was—if we get a few of them finished, then we can justify bringing an ACF up in the wintertime for one of these outages, we could do that and provide at least service for the docks that have been completed.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.

For the record, Don Pannone. Moving to Slide 41. This outlines our recent discretionary grant awards. We— I think we are in year 4 of of the rural ferry program that was introduced in IIJA. There was a notice of funding opportunity last April.

We applied for several projects and received $410 million. Really, the remainder of the authority established in that program was granted to Alaska. So we received $161 million for operations. That represents about 2 years of supplemental funding for the ferry system based on the way we have structured the budget. The $153.4 million of federal funds for the Lakonti replacement, $37.6 million for the final construction of Cascade Point, $33.4 million for the Cake Terminal, and $20.6 million for a terminal facility on the South Tongass Highway in Saxman.

And then $4 million for improvements to customer systems such as the reservations or the ticket systems in the terminals, as well as our dispatch call center for our staff.

Next. And for the record, Ryan Anderson, just back on this one on the discretionary grants award in the rural ferry program, I do just want to, you know, big thanks to our Congressional delegation. The legislators, all the folks, there's a lot of folks in the background that worked hard to make sure that we had this possible. We had a lot of— I mean, we had the hearings last session about the operations funds, and we knew we were in a tough spot. And this, this was great for, for us to be able to move forward like this really provides us that ability to keep moving forward, you know, with our plan and doing this thing.

So very good. Before we leave ferries for now, I have one question. There continues— in Southeast, there continues to be rumblings and outstanding concern about new ferry construction and whether— the sentiment seems to be that the new ferries we're constructing are overbuilt as compared to what the actual needs of the routes are. The amount of crew quarters being, I think, chief among those concerns. Sometimes, from what I've heard— what is your comfort level with the plan and the new ferry construction and the size of crews with a cost-benefit as to how large we're building these ferries and the amount of crew quarters that we have?

Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, great question. I guess when it comes to— right now we're bidding the Tasleana to add crew quarters. And our goal, you know, and as we look at the plan, it's interoperability so that when things happen, we can move vessels to different areas and run them. So for example, if we had an ACF with crew quarters available and we could run it in the terminal facilities, the docks, fit, we would be running an Alaska-class ferry up to Prince William Sound and they wouldn't have the outage rate this winter. We would be able to cover that in a much better way.

So when we're making these decisions, I know there's, you know, that Northland Canal run has always been that dayboat discussion to go from Auke Bay to Skagway and Haines and back. And it's always, the times were always really tight to do it. And so we're just trying to build that flexibility capability into these vessels to be able to do that. And so that's really the goal. When you look at what we're doing with the Tustamena and the replacement vessel, that's really going to be just a— it's a similar size vessel, but the way it's going to be designed, it's going to hold more vehicles.

You know, we'll have much more efficient engines. I mean, just really trying to make it so we're thinking for another 50 years. So we do want to, you know, keep that investment going.

Understood. Thank you. Please continue. Okay. We're going to move on to rural transportation and regional access.

And so this is where you get out into our, you know, the other part of Alaska, you know, in the rural areas. We have $834 million that we're investing, 43 STIP projects in these. And you can see the listing of what they consist of. You'll see for major road and river connections, we have the West Sitna Access Road, King Cove-Cold Bay Road, Williamsport-Pile Bay. That one connects Lake Iliamna to Cook Inlet.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Frontier Road, that's a road that would connect the Yukon and the Kuskokwim River. Nenana Tochaket outside of Nenana, that goes to the the, the Kuntishna River. And then the Point McKenzie connector is another one that's listed in this tip.

And then we also have rural transit and winter access. And this is a program, you know, we've been working hard. You know, our rural transit is important, and so we've got good investments there. Ice roads and seasonal roads, really working to make sure that other highway system in Alaska that's so important to outlying communities that seasonal we're investing in. Winter trail safety, of course, and then non-urban transit planning.

And then you can see within the Ice Road Program some of the lists of the places where we're at. We're down there on the Kuskokwim, up on the Northwest Arctic, Houslia, Fort Yukon, Crooked Creek, Healy Lake, Tanana. All those folks are taking advantage of the Ice Road Program to improve their access with those communities.

For the record, Don Pannone. This slide shows kind of the context of our last year here and since 2019, our Federal Highway Administration obligations. So these numbers include our formula funds and our exempt funds and then any August redistribution limitation that we had on top of that. You can see there is a natural oscillation. Fluctuation from year to year.

We will have a high year, low year.

The last year, which really is ending tomorrow, federal fiscal year '26, we anticipate obligating, and we have, we have obligated all of our funds as of this morning, $727.9 million. That is down a little from last year. Last year we had a record high August redistribution of over $180 million. So that made last year extremely high, and this year that $727 million includes our roughly $56 million of August redistribution that we will talk about on the next slide. As far as the program overview, again, we were building this presentation, you know, over the last couple of weeks and couple of days, but as of this morning, we have obligated all of our authority, all of our limitation, including the August redistribution.

So that's $727.9 million of Fed, nothing being lapsed, everything being utilized to deliver projects. We also had AC conversions this year. We had 37 projects that converted $229 million. So that's authorizations that we paid down. And then Conversely, we had new authorizations under AC totaling $412 million, so an overall increase to our AC balance of roughly just over $180 million.

Overall, the new projects that we obligated, it was about 143 projects, and then to show how active our transactions are throughout the year, we had 735— Project obligations, so that's modifications to project funding agreements with Fed Highway. So 735. These require federal review, our internal review, our project control review. So we have a very active engagement with Fed Highway throughout the year as our funding changes and projects need funds or we proceed to different phases. Very good.

Director Pannoni. Throughout the course of the last year to 18 months, we've had a significant concern from the contracting community about some of this information and how that matches up with projected and then actual contractor payments. Where are we sitting right now with actual contractor payments compared with projected contractor payments? And then how does that match up to, like, last couple of years.

Yeah, to the Chair, so these— we have different lenses in which we view the health of our program. And we have leading and lagging indicators. So the obligations that we have are going to be leading indicators. These will eventually become projects that go out to bid and get awarded as a contract. That is a mid indicator.

And then as that work is performed, we have contract payments go out, which is the kind of last indicator. So I don't have figures on the projections referenced or the contract payments, but we do have a slide on contract awards, 2 slides from now. Excellent. We can talk about that. Very good.

Senator Keogh has a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Panone, can you remind me then, uh, adding $180 million to the advanced construction balance, where does that put our AC total?

Uh, through the chair to Senator Kiel, right now our balance is at roughly $750 $756 million, and that aligns with a target we had set to have what is reasonable among other states is about a year's worth of obligation authority sitting on the AC balance. So $756 million is our current balance.

Thank you. Just to clarify, that is your expected balance end of year, or that we would end up at $910 or so?

That is our current balance that will also be the same as end of year, which is essentially today and tomorrow.

Thank you.

Very good. Please continue. All right. Moving on to slide 47. Again, this year we requested $56.5 million in August redistribution.

We— the Fed Highway was able to honor that request and grant that extra limitation. And we've just provided some similar states as far as construction season or population or transportation systems to show the context of August redistribution among those states and then our history here of August redistribution. Awards showing that, that last year, that record of $186 million, and then this year, $56 million. It varies and oscillates. With a large August redistribution last year, we were able to move a lot of projects forward and didn't have necessarily that many projects in the queue that matched the specific fund types available, but we were able to get all the money we requested this year, which was a success for the state.

And an additional $56 million.

Thank you, Director. And is that really the largest constraining factor to our ability to capture more August redistribution dollars, just the amount of projects we have ready to go?

To the Chair, at the— we have to be able to certify that the projects are ready. They have to be in the STIP, and those specific funds have to be available. So I'd say it's a culmination of all these factors.

Having the right funds available and the fact that we had such a large August redistribution last year, you know, this year we had to look at what funds and what projects we had ready. That's always the puzzle we have to put together when we're doing August redistribution. Understood. Let me ask this a different way. So let's say we're looking at August redistribution amount as a performance metric and something that we would want to keep stable and maximize for the benefit of our state.

If we had that as a goal, What could the legislature and the administration and the department be focused on in order to maximize August redistribution?

Maybe I will take a stab at that and let our commissioner also respond. But when we are looking at which projects to AC and looking at the extent of the STIP as well, AC is a great tool. August redistribution is a great way to pay down AC. So if we look at what projects we are going to hold in AC and how we might match those funds. Ultimately, FHWA decides at the end of the year how much is available.

So we, you know, we get— we work with them and then try to fit that. And if we have a good backlog of AC projects that can just be converted and the right amount of funds and that matches up, we are maximizing that August redistribution benefit. And maybe I can pass to the Commissioner for any elaboration. Yeah. Chair Bjorkman, for the record, Ryan Anderson.

Yeah, I think the project selection is important just because there are certain types of projects that if you can get them, you know, they are the smaller fund types, maybe some certain types of safety funding or a certain type of emissions funding, whatever it is. That, you know, we are always trying to get those projects across the finish line. And a lot of times where we find challenges is, you know, in the urban areas when you have right-of-way acquisitions and those types of things. We need to try to get ahead of that so those projects are available. Because I think those are the ones that have been restricting us to use our full amount of limitation.

So that's where, yeah, I think where our focus is.

The utility issues, that kind of— you are very familiar with those. Those could always be a problem. Yeah, very good.

Okay, one other question here. Would you say that maximizing August redistribution, is that a good performance metric and goal for the department to have kind of in the, in the medium and long term? Should that be a goal that we have if we're looking at this chart of August August redistribution, should we be constantly looking to steadily grow that and maybe take out some of these lumps in that curve?

Yeah, through Chair Bjorkman. Yeah, I mean, it's one. I would say it is one metric. Our challenge nationally, they would really like not to be doing the August redistributions because of the challenges it causes all the states with, you know, it is not a revenue source you forecast because every year it changes. But it is something we need to be considering as we are programming projects, absolutely.

Understood. That's helpful. Thank you. Please continue. For the record, Don Pannone, moving to slide 48, which is a snapshot of our— another indicator of our program health, which is contract awards.

So for Federal Highways contract awards, we have got $626.8 million. From October 2025 to August 31st. We have worked with AGC to talk about what size of projects and contracts to deliver, and then to ensure that the disbursement across the state, thereby region, is something that the industry can support. And then on the far right, we also have our, you know, the different types of projects, whether it's airports, highways or facilities, and then a number of marine projects.

All right. We'll move to Slide 49.

Okay. For the record, Ryan Anderson. And we just wanted to give a quick— as we close things out here, you know, kind of some of the great projects that have gone on across the state. When you look at Northern Region, if you're driving that section between Fairbanks in Nenana. There's just a great project going on.

It's completely off— it doesn't cause any disruptions because we're working off the highway, but we're realigning those dangerous curves that were out there. You know, working hard on the Elliott up north, the Richardson on those bridges right outside of Fairbanks. We have, you know, working on the airports out in the rural Alaska. We're, you know, we're really moving on this Nenana River Bridge at Rex because we've That was one where we found there was some fatigue happening there. Our folks turned that around in a year to get that bridge project out and so we can get that replaced.

And so just some nice projects there in the Central Region. Of course, Deputy Commissioner Keith talked about the McHugh Creek on the Seward Highway project, and that's been a longstanding safety issue. The AMATS downtown connection, and that was a great project. Of course, you know, we got the bridge across on Sterling Highway. We launched that successfully.

And so now we're continuing down that path to get the Sterling Highway project complete. And we got the Kenai Spur project going on to go from the— finally from the 2 lanes to the 5. Just Big Lake Road, you know, it goes on. So pretty proud of those. Down in South Coast Region, working on the Haines Highway, Klondike and the rockfall.

We've got a good set of Ketchikan projects happening. Kodiak, you know, we've got a fair amount going on. Just, you know, you look at all that's happening happening. And that doesn't even count the international airports. We've had an incredible investment in Anchorage International Airport with all the activity going on there as well.

So yeah, it's been a really good solid year for us, and that's what we want to continue. And that really leads us into our advertisement and award pipeline. And so here you can see, you know, we have our tentative advertising schedule. It's online. You can Google DOT procurement and you can find it.

You know, we are doing monthly updates now with— it's basically an open public meeting. We have our preconstruction engineers who lead our design teams that provide updates on any changes to that schedule. So as projects slip, we have people that are, you know, giving that why. And so that's been real successful. People have been asking us to make sure we continue that, and we will.

And so you can just see here some of the good investments, like on the Dalton Highway. You know, the Richardson, the parks, and it's really, it's across the state. So just want to give you that summary, um, of what's coming up in 2027 construction. Very good. Thank you.

Well, thank you for all the great information today, and thank you for sticking around. I understand, Deputy Commissioner, if you have to go, that is okay. Um, we're looking at Um, as we get a little more fall crisp in the air, another winter season, and lots of folks always interested in winter road maintenance and DOT preparedness to deal with snow. Uh, what is your overall feeling, um, and assessment of our preparedness in regards to personnel and equipment in South Central to deal with snow on our highways? Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, I will speak to that briefly and I will let Deputy Commissioner Keith speak.

Definitely, so we have had some budget reductions over the years, you know, and we have been cut. So we are in that time where we are very tight on budget. We have restrictions in place. We have been working hard to minimize the impacts of those budget cuts through, you know, I think you saw that in our budget last year where we were deleting PCNs, for example, where we could shift fund sources to make sure that we could keep those maintenance and operations teams funded and looking hard at our department on where we can, you know, give a bit, you know, and prioritize. So, you know, right now we are going to continue on with some of the successful things we did, like, for example, the contracting in the Anchorage area for sidewalks, the contracting on the hillside for the Priority 3 and 4s.

We are continuing that, those efforts, you know, and we are staffed. I think the Anchorage facility, I think our vacancies, you know, I think we are reasonable there. You get into some of the outlying areas and we do have some struggles with vacancies right now that we will work through. But at this point, you know, we are getting ready for winter and we are going to hit it, you know, like we always do. Um, yeah, anything, Mr. Keith?

I think our standard practices were making sure our equipment is ready, and all of our statewide equipment fleet, our maintenance operation stations have been going through and just being sure that those equipment turnovers are ready to happen. The snow removal contracts are being renewed right now, especially in the Anchorage area and Kenai Peninsula So, but across the board, yeah, you may talk to our staff, they're certainly concerned about the budget. They're worried about restrictions and ability to do overtime. And those are things that we'll continue to monitor throughout the winter. Primarily, you know, the unknown factor is that this is the super El Niño weather year and we can't fully understand the, what that means for this year, if that's gonna mean a very heavy snowfall year, if it's going to mean a lot of rain.

So we'll need to just continually assess our, um, snow management plan and, uh, tailor it to the, um, conditions.

Understood. Thank you. Just for my clarification, members, other members in the public, maintenance and operations was cut in fiscal year '26, I thought we put that money back in fiscal year '27. Did that not happen? To the chair, there was a request to put it back by, by reducing positions elsewhere, and the request was cut in half, so it was not restored.

Um, yeah, so you got half of it back. Half of the reduction was restored, correct? Correct. Okay. Very good.

What, what often happens is how this comes to my desk from a constituent level is many times constituents will communicate directly with a local DOT office or DOT staff, and then they will hear their perceived concerns about readiness. About maybe equipment not being ready to go, or they have vacancies, and what is kind of the reason and rationale behind those vacancies. One thing that's been brought to me recently was that wages were viewed as insufficient. But then when I go and talk to other folks, they're telling me that, well, we just recently signed an agreement, and then we'll have a new agreement up, where we significantly did increase wages. How are we, in your estimation, competitive for operators?

How are we competing in the wage market for folks that plow, snow, and sand our roads? Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, you know, it really is for Alaska, from our perspective, we monitor vacancy rates. You know, the labor trades and crafts union is the one that that is our equipment operators and those folks. And they are coming up for another round of collective bargaining. And so that will be this next year.

So, but when we look at vacancy rates across the state, it's really geographic specific. There are areas and outlying areas where we have very high vacancy rates. We have places right now that's, you know, you take a place like ADAC, for example, we have to maintain that airport out there. We had people that were out there that would stay out there. They've, they've recently retired and we can't find people to stay out there.

So we'll start switching to a 2-on, 2-off, and that costs more in travel costs. I mean, it impacts our budgets. It's something that we have to absorb because we weren't budgeted for that. But we're facing several rural locations like that right now where we're switching to those 2-on, 2-off locations to address that. So it's not so much a wage issue.

Is, is where people are choosing to live. I mean, I think the other factors factor in the cost of living, the housing availability, all those things we see affecting our, our teams out there, right? And so folks from ADAC aren't calling me, it's, it's folks on the Kenai. And then I hear about people talking about Matsu and Anchorage specifically. So with a South Central focus, do we feel comfortable about where we're at on on wages to compete in the marketplace for operators so we have people in trucks to deal with the snow?

Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, the way we would look at that, I mean, we monitor the vacancy rates. And so if we do see an elevated vacancy rate in a district, then we start looking at those things. You know, we went through this Oh man, that was a couple years ago now. The international airports, for example, we started seeing high vacancy rates and there was concerns and there was an effort to provide some incentive pays for that to try to address that. And that goes through letters of agreement with the union.

I mean, there's a whole process to that because of the bargaining contracts. So, um, yeah, so that, that would be the way we would look at it from that perspective. Understood. Yeah, and thank you for bringing up the LOAs too because I that another thing I heard and continue to hear about is some of those LOAs, whether they be in your department or in corrections, let's say, for example, when, when they go away after you've hired people under an LOA and then you have people lose significant amount of pay, that creates a lot of turnover. And so whether it be for that, that reason or another, Do you consider turnover, even though you can hire new people, but if you have to hire a new person every 6 months or 10 months, what impact does turnover have in your calculation there?

Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, we've seen, I mean, the turnover I know in the Fairbanks area, they've had a fair amount of turnover. You know, what you see is maybe increase in equipment damages, you know, things that, you know, new operators You do see impacts there. And so our folks are good, you know, they've been— they have some pretty good ways that they mentor and move things forward. But yeah, absolutely. You know, turnover has an impact.

Understood. And so how often are we hiring operators that are basically getting their CDL training on the job? Do we do that much? Yeah. Terry Bjorkman.

Yeah, we, we do have workforce development funds where we will, if we find you know, good, good candidates, we will help them get their CDL training. Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's important. Very good. A couple other questions as we wrap up here, and I thank you again for your extended time.

Guardrails— Senator Rauscher mentioned that earlier. We have a number of guardrails that are significantly damaged on the Seward and Sterling Highway between here and Soldotna. Is there a plan for fixing those? And maybe can you talk me through— there's an accident happens, guardrail gets peeled back, um, posts are gone. What is the process for getting those guardrails fixed?

Because some of them, I mean, they look, they look pretty dangerous. I mean, if somebody hit that spot again, you'd have— you basically have like a big blade sitting there in the right-of-way. Chair Bjorkman, yeah, thanks for that. I definitely recognize the guardrail challenge. That concerned me earlier this year.

So we allocated— we had some guardrail funds that the legislature appropriated, or the governor put in the budget and we got last year. Plus we found some additional funds to focus on guardrail to the extent of about 4 point— I want to say it was $4.3 million for the entire state. And what we did was we allocated it. We had the numbers for the guardrail quantities per region along the highway, so we allocated it accordingly to that. I did ask for a plan on that.

I'll share that with you when I get it, because I recognize on the Sterling there was— seemed like there was an elevated amount of damages there. Those damages, just for your awareness, they're not federally eligible. So, you know, when we come through with a project, we can replace guardrail, but when there's just damages happening, is, you know, on us. So that's another cost that we would absorb if we didn't have dedicated funds. Roger.

Okay. One more before I get to Senator Rauscher. Do we feel we need additional funds to deal with guardrail damage? Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, we're definitely seeing elevated— for some reason, we see a lot more guardrail damage these days. And I think you see that in other areas too.

Let's say, for example, roadside signage, those types of things. So yeah, we're definitely doing our best to keep up with it. So additional resources is always helpful in those areas. Understood. Senator Rauscher.

Yeah, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Through the chair, I guess I would be amiss if you were to leave There's a guy, uh, Jay Reeder. He's up there around mile 276 where you're working on some bridge project, and a lot of his trees, uh, 43 of them, were taken down.

Apparently he's counted them. And, uh, well, he's just worried about— there is no guardrail, there's no protection for cars flying off the road at all to keep them from, uh, probably in a rollover situation. So I'm wondering, are you aware of that? If you are not, I was wondering if you could look into it for me. Through the Chair, Senator Rauscher.

Yes, sir. That is on the Parks Highway. I am sorry. I am familiar. Representative McCabe had reached out to me and provided me photos from Mr. Reeder as well.

So we are working on that. That is part of that Rex Creek Bridge project is what that is. That is correct. So we are working with them. I will include you on the response.

With Representative McCabe. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Another issue we hear a lot about is abandoned vehicles in the right-of-way. We also are dealing with significant increase of abandoned vehicles on private property. And so we'll likely see some legislation come forward to that end. But sticking with Your purview of abandoned vehicles in the right-of-way, my understanding is that there's a time frame that is kind of lengthy, certainly 30 days, and getting those vehicles removed, that would seem to most people as a long time to see an abandoned vehicle on the highway.

So I have two questions. First, do we need additional funds to make sure we can remove in a timely way abandoned vehicles along our highways and right-of-ways? And then second, do we need to tighten time frames to allow those vehicles to be removed more quickly? Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, I believe— how much, uh, Dom, do you remember how much we have on the Abandoned Vehicle Fund appropriated. Yeah, for the record, Don Pino, and our current budget has a specific allocation for abandoned vehicle removal of $100,000.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, so for the record, Ryan Anderson. So yeah, we are absolutely, you know, when we receive that notification that there is an abandoned— there is a vehicle, you know, my purview is we need to remove it as quickly as possible. I don't believe we have to wait the 30 days. So I'm a big advocate to— now what we have found is sometimes the towing companies that we use take a bit of time to get there.

And so that's been a struggle a bit for us. But yeah, really we want those off the highway. We do, if they're on the road, you know, there is an interaction with the troopers that we work through. But if they're off, you know, and I've seen these where they're in the ditch or they're in the trees even. Yep.

Yeah, that's really in our right of way. We need to deal with that as quickly as possible. And we've had some tough ones. You know, I think we had the one, the trailer that was burned out on the Old Glen. Just those types of things.

And so they become public nuisances if we don't deal with them. So. Very good. Yeah, well, that will be a significant topic going into the next session. Senator Keehl.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the last person to pass a bill making it easier to deal with abandoned vehicles. I share the frustration deeply. I would be interested in getting— I can't imagine you have it handy— but getting back from the department a breakout on where that abandoned vehicle money has been spent regionally around the state, and especially a breakdown of how much has been spent in munis that assess their citizens for junk vehicle programs communities that don't.

Yeah, we can do that. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Keele. Senator Rauscher.

Senator Rauscher, did you have a question? Yeah, I apologize, I did not lower my hand from before. No worries. That's okay. Okay, last, last item from me.

Um, in your recent press release about the STIP, you mentioned, uh, King Cove, Cold Bay Road. There's been a lot of news coverage about that project, about the project moving forward and then not moving forward. And then we have contractors out there that are staging stuff, and they're wondering, like, what are we doing? Are we getting paid? Is there going to be a road?

Can you just give us an update on that project, please? Yeah, Chair Bjorkman. Yeah, so King Cove-Cold Bay Road, and it is, you know, it was in STIP Amendment 6 approved and then also in the new STIP. We did make it out there with the FHWA administrator as well because that project is included in the executive order for Alaska, unleashing Alaska's resources, that extraordinary Resources Order. The project— so it's been going through litigation for years and years and years.

Recently, there was decisions by the Interior and a land exchange accomplished that provided the ability to move forward with the project. So we started moving on it. The— subsequently, that land exchange The court's ruled against it, and it's going— now it's going through the appeals process. But the first 3 miles of the road is on King Cove Corporation lands. And so we are able to build the first 3 miles.

We did have a challenge against that that we won. And so the work that you see out there right now is really preparing and stockpiling and building staging roads, access roads to staging areas so that we are anticipating, you know, once we can get through the environmental work and whatnot for that project that's in the STEP to build that first 3 miles, and then while that litigation resolves this winter, we want to position ourselves so we could build the rest of the road next summer. Understood. And so that would be with 100% state dollars then, the first 3 miles?

Chair Bjorkman, no, our goal is— if you look at the STIP Amendment 6, it is really the first 3 miles that that $20 million is for. And so the work we are doing right now, we fully anticipate to go to the Federal Highway Administration and ask for reimbursement or provide, you know, state-furnished materials that we would get reimbursed for with the federal dollars.

Understood. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions from Senator Keele or Senator Rauscher? Senator Tobin had to drop off.

No, I'm good. Thank you very much, Chair, for what you've done here in this meeting. I appreciate it very much. And thank you to Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner and all for the work that you guys do. I appreciate it.

Very good.

Thank you for everything that you've done. Um, I don't think we'll have another transportation meeting before the new year, but maybe we'll just miss each other so much that we'll get back together again. You never know. Okay, but as there's no further business to come before the committee at this time, we are adjourned at 1:15 PM. Yeah.