Connecting the Glenn and Seward Highways with a high-speed multi-lane connector through Anchorage is ridiculous. Of all the problems facing the city, now and in the future, none of them will be improved and several worsened by creating a highway bypass through town.
The largest city in the state, Anchorage is a destination for much of the highway traffic on both the Glenn and Seward Highways, rather than simply a place that needs bypassing. While some hauling and recreational traffic heads through to a destination farther north or south, and it could save gas and minutes to not slow from highway speed or stop for lights, highway traffic is slowed more often because of weather, accidents and occasionally damage from earthquakes, avalanches or landslides than from a few stoplights on the existing routes through Anchorage. The amount of traffic that wants to traverse Anchorage quickly is not worth the disruption, impact on adjacent neighborhoods, noise, carbon footprint or additional cost to Anchorage taxpayers for more road maintenance.
Traffic through Anchorage does not need to be faster, it needs to be slower in order to reduce deaths from vehicular traffic. All highway engineers know this, just as they know from innumerable examples that highways contribute to turning adjacent neighborhoods into ghettos.
We do not need any version of a “highway to highway” connector through the middle of Anchorage, such as an elevated connector at the west end of Merrill Field. We need less highway noise, slower traffic, and investment in our core communities rather than destroying them.
— Tina Tomsen, Anchorage
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