New intersection for Midtown

I talked about this earlier, but now it's actually happening. The intersection of West 40th Avenue and Arctic Blvd is just that -- an actual intersection. Installed right in front of the fairly new Alutiiq Plaza, its best to guess the stop lights that are putting a break to the long 40 mph stretch of Arctic are being added to accommodate the growing workforce that head over to Plaza 36 during the workday where the new JL Tower, Alutiiq Plaza, ASRC building, Centerpoint Financial Center, and coming soon -- CenterPoint West are all located. Before Alutiiq Plaza (seen on the above picture) was built, this portion of W. 40th Avenue didn't even exist; but my have times changed. From what I can recall, this is the second newest stoplight intersection to spring up on an existing road in Midtown in the last couple of years. The way I see it, the more breaks we put to these long stretches of roads, the better as Midtown transitions from suburban outpost to the new city center of Anchorage.

Another good thing about this new intersection -- maybe now motorists previously zooming by will actually notice the unique looking Alutiiq Plaza when stopped at the light.

Prop 6 Passes

Just found out tonight while watching Channel 2 that Prop 6, the transportation and safety bond, extended its lead during the absentee count earlier today and has officially passed with a margin of 352 votes. As you may have heard, the bond was the closest race in this April's Muni election in which the yes vote was at one time barely losing to the no's during election night, then pulled up past the no votes by a margin of 2 votes up until today. Some of the funding, according to AnchorageTomorrow include:

- Construct Facility Improvements with ADA access and other upgrades to existing bus stops and transit facilities ($207,000).

- Replace and upgrade data processing hardware to improve efficiency, accuracy, timeliness and inventory control ($30,000).

- Replace major bus components, acquire Smart Card fare boxes and upgrade operating systems ($101,000).

The Smart Card acquisition is an interesting one which I had not heard about till now. Besides the above, Prop 6 will also replace cardiac monitors on ambulences and fire trucks as replacement parts for current systems are no longer manufactured. BTW as noted by a reader in my previous entry, the rest of the bonds supplied by the Muni and school district took a beating by voters (except road bonds of course) including Prop 5 which involved funding to reconstruct the entrance of the main library.

Prop 5 in Profile: New Loussac Library entrance

As everyone knows by now what with all the illegally placed campaign signs lining up the roads across town, everyone and their mother will be on this Tuesdays ballot for mayor. But the mayoral race isn't all that is up for vote next week. Besides our 1600 candidates running for City Hall, Prop 5 for library funding is among the more interesting props up for vote. Besides proposing a new library branch for Downtown (which is awesome), the proposition also seeks funding to totally redo the entrance of the Loussac Library. Gone would be the stairs, the skybridge connecting to the Alaska Collection, and the drive through/drop off. In place of the stairs would be a ground level atrium with a large curtain of glass smartly facing towards the south while the road that goes through the library will no longer connect to Denali but would instead become a circular drop off surrounded by a new plaza that better links the library to the fountain.

Renderings of the new library proposals (PDF)

As for my mayoral predictions, this Tuesday will only be the filtering of the candidates. Failing to reach the 45% threshold, expect Croft and Sullivan signs to remain.

Centerpoint West rises

Just like the two previous summers, this summer will see more steel rise into the air over Anchorage. This year, CenterPoint West, off of 36th Avenue & CenterPoint Drive, will rise eight stories into the air next to the JL Tower -- roughly about the same height as the new Dena'ina Center in Downtown. Architecturally, the rendering of the building looks like something from the 1980s, but I suspect this is nothing more than a largley inaccurate artist rendition which is quite common when looking at other buildings in town and how different they look from their original rendering. A 360 space parking garage will be built west of the building, which only makes sense considering I didn't think the people at JL Properties would be able to fit another office building into the sea of asphalt which already gets filled to near capacity with cars during the work day. By the way, in order to handle the growing amount of work force heading to the area, it appears an intersection complete with stoplights will sprout up on the stretch of Arctic Blvd between 36th and Tudor in front of the also newly built Alutiiq Plaza. More good news, I think as we have too many long stretches of roads in Midtown that could use interuptions to tame and slow traffic down.

"The High Cost of Free Parking"

That's the name of the book by UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, which four years since being published is seeing its influence filter into the policies of some American cities, most notably San Francisco. Shoup argues about the misuse of valuable real estate that is given away as "free" parking which causes a cycle that starts with subsidizing parking, promoting driving / decreasing transit ridership, laying more asphalt for expansion, and repeat -- ultimatley winding up with us asking why our cities are so anti-pedestrian friendly and ugly. Anyways InTransition just published a great article on this subject and how some cities are looking at the solutions provided in Shoup's book so as to combat the problem of excess parking.

InTransiton: Putting Parking into Reverse

Tikahtnu Commons shaping up

The new Tikahtnu Commons continues to slowly but surely shape up as more of the retail stores announced to be in the new development start to put up their signage while doing finishing touches inside. Major retail anchors include Target (open since last Oct), Best Buy, Sports Authority, Kohls, and Lowes along with I think Regal Cinemas. I recall that the developers behind Tikahtnu promised that small local businesses will also have a presense in the new sprawl-mall, but so far the only "small" businesses I'm noticing are Gamestop, and Hard Slab Creamery. The latter I never heard of, but according to the googles, Hard Slab Creamery is a nationwide franchise... of ice cream, I would imagine.

But really, I've got to give it to these developers. From the way they sold the project, you'd be convinced that the CIRI backed Tikahtnu Commons would be a progressive "town center" like project with a mix of retail, offices, and other uses in a compact aesthetically pleasing area that would rival the also now disasterous Glenn Square across from the Northway Mall. Instead Tikahtnu Commons is turning out to be a case of a slow and ugly car wreck that in true rubbernecker spirit, we can't help but to keep tabs on and watch as this thing goes further down the incinerator. If this development is suppose to be as trendy as the developers have been touting for a while, then the 5th Avenue Mall in Downtown must be lightyears ahead when it comes to its progressive utilization of smaller space. Instead of coming from the 21st Century, Tikahtnu Commons is a sprawl of retail that comes to us freshly from the year 1959 when gas was cheap, land was plenty, and environmental concerns were non-existent.

Clash over the People Mover

As you may have heard, acting mayor Matt Claman recently took the red pen to the People Mover and ended two bus routes serving Eagle River as well as end bus service on three days of the week that receive low ridership. Well this Tuesday saw the Assembly pass a resolution by a 9 to 1 vote disagreeing with Claman's cuts to the bus service. Unfortunately the mayors office is not required to obey the resolution and will therefore mean the resolution is nothing more than a letter written by the Assembly about how upset they are with him (yep, just got a Team America World Police quote in).

Anyways fast forward to today and Mr. Claman meets with UAA students in charge of a climate change panel that crafted a report on how the city should best take on the crisis of climate change. According to KTUU, one of the recommendations that was made is to "fully fund and expand the People Mover bus service as outlined in the city's long-range transportation plan". Ouch! It is indeed true though that the citys transportation plan is consistant with this recommendation as is Title 21 and its design codes that presume better bus services to conform with its rewritten standards.

...Clamans cuts to the People Mover are expected to remain..

Project in Profile: Anchorage Museum Expansion

Just thought I'd go out this morning to take some pics of the new Anchorage Museum as it nears completion, with just finishing touches left until it opens later this year. From the time the museum staff were seeking architects for a proposal, to the ribbon cutting ceremony not long from now, it will have been about seven years in the making for this project to be complete. At least for me, this project felt like an eternity, but maybe I was just overly anxious for this one. By the way, you might have noticed that the signboard advertising the new museum expansion features the original design, which of course looks nothing like what actually got built. I wouldn't be surprised if museum staff did not notice this.

 

Independent study: Nearly $700M for Knik Arm Crossing

You may remember awhile ago the state DOT commissioned a consultant independent of KABATA to study the presumably higher amount of money it would cost to go ahead with the Knik Arm Crossing. KABATA put the new cost at around $683 million while this report has it at $686 million and over $800 million should the bridge be expanded from a two lane toll bridge to four lanes. Additonal costs such as construction oversight and other possible factors that could come into play were not included in this new calculation, according to the ADN. Overall, the report stated "The design and construction risks for this project are extraordinarily high," however the report also said success can be achieved if the parties involved in the bridges construction can come up with solutions when it comes to responsibility of handling the project so as to keep it above water.

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