Alaska DOT moves to accelerate Anchorage HSIP projects, defends lane‑drop reviews amid lawmaker concerns

Alaska Department of Transportation officials told the House Transportation Committee on Jan. 22 that they reissued the 2026 Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) spending plan in partnership with the Municipality of Anchorage and used a Federal Highway Administration mechanism called "advanced construct" to accelerate projects and restore about $30,000,000 in Anchorage HSIP funding for 2026.

"We are employing a technique called advanced construct that will allow us to capture next year's dollars for projects that we can deliver now or can obligate this year," Shannon McCarthy, communications director for Alaska DOT, said during the presentation. McCarthy said the restored Anchorage funding comes from FHWA HSIP dollars and is not new state money.

DOT staff briefed lawmakers on differences between traditional "road diets" and what the agency calls "lane drops." Pam Golden, traffic and safety engineer, told the committee that a road diet — converting a four‑lane, two‑direction street to a three‑lane cross section with a two‑way left‑turn lane — is a well‑studied, proven safety countermeasure. By contrast, DOT said there is little national evidence for removing lanes from one‑way streets (a lane drop) and the agency wants a system‑level analysis before proceeding widely in Anchorage.

"A road diet is a proven safety countermeasure ... a 4 lane road to a 3 lane road," Golden said. "We do not have a proven countermeasure for taking a lane away on a 1 way road — one study in Downtown Manhattan is not enough to call something proven." She told members the Vision 0 Task Force has urged a system‑wide analysis to ensure lane reductions do not simply push crashes into other neighborhoods or impede emergency response and freight movement.

Lawmakers pressed DOT about timing. Representative Eisheid asked whether advanced construct means projects are fully funded now; Golden replied that advanced construct lets DOT obligate federal dollars earlier but requires accounting for those obligations and is treated as a funded project in the program. On the question of when lane drops could be considered a proven countermeasure, Golden said the agency expects the evidence base could take roughly "5–7 years" of post‑construction data to be definitive but that analyses and pilots are already under way.

Committee members raised concerns about local impacts. Representative McCabe warned that reducing lanes could worsen east‑west traffic capacity and asked whether reversible lanes or other traffic management tactics were considered; DOT staff acknowledged those tradeoffs and described AMATS (Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions) system analysis underway to identify cumulative effects across multiple proposed changes.

DOT staff also explained public involvement constraints in HSIP projects. Because HSIP is data driven and often identifies countermeasures that can be delivered within the right of way, DOT officials said public outreach sometimes follows identification of a technical solution, though the department intends to solicit feedback on aesthetics and implementation details where possible.

Cochair Carrick closed by noting the committee will receive more DOT briefings later in the week, including a Jan. 27 hearing with the commissioner on a $70,000,000 supplemental request to capture available federal funds.

What happens next: DOT said AMATS and Vision 0 work will inform which Anchorage projects advance; the department expects to have system‑analysis results and recommendations within the fiscal year, and construction timing will follow design, right‑of‑way and STIP coordination.