State seeks input on transportation projects

PALMER — If you’ve ever wanted to be in on the ground floor of state efforts to build roads, here’s your chance to help update the Long Range Transportation Plan.

Thursday, the state is inviting people to be a part of the process, starting at 4:30 p.m. at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla.

The LRTP envisions changes to the system as far out as 2035. It’s an enormous document containing information about plans for infrastructure across the state.

It will, “provide future direction for our highways, aviation, transit, rail, marine, bicycle, and pedestrian transportation. The LRTP, written with agency and public collaboration, will develop Alaska’s transportation priorities based on the common interests and needs of stakeholders statewide.”

In practical terms, when local lawmakers need to know what the state is up to, they consult the LRTP. When they want to have a project moved up in priority or eliminated, they talk about changing the LRTP.

Taking a project out of a plan, or delaying it, can send local officials scrambling. It was just such a potential move that got the Mat-Su Borough Assembly moving on sorting out who would pay to maintain the segment of the Seward Meridian Parkway expansion the state already has completed.

At any rate, it’s a big, important document, and the state is seeking input for its latest major revision. In addition to Wasilla, there are meetings in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

“Alaska is changing. Our urban populations are growing and aging. Our rural communities off the road system are reliant on air, and sometimes marine, transportation. Unfortunately, our available funding resources are shrinking. The LRTP helps us identify future transportation challenges and opportunities,” reads an answer to a frequently asked question on the webpage devoted to the plan update.

Also this week — from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, the state will host a meeting at the Chickaloon Community Center to talk about the project rehabilitate the Glenn Highway through the eastern reaches of the Mat-Su Borough from Mile 66.5 to Mile 92.

That project is still in the planning stages, meaning it’s yet another chance to get in on the ground floor.

• Chickaloon Glenn Highway Meeting, 6 to 8 p.m., May 7 at the Chickaloon Community Center, Mile 76.2, Glenn Highway.

• Long Range Transportation Plan Update, from 4:30 to 8 p.m., May 8 at the Menard Memorial Sports Center, Wasilla. A presentation is planned at 5:30 p.m.