{"id":2364,"date":"2015-12-08T23:03:42","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T07:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/anchorage-mayor-pulls-support-from-road-project\/"},"modified":"2015-12-08T23:03:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T07:03:42","slug":"anchorage-mayor-pulls-support-from-road-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/anchorage-mayor-pulls-support-from-road-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Anchorage mayor pulls support from road project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>ANCHORAGE \u2014<\/strong> Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has withdrawn the city\u2019s support for a controversial $20 million dollar transportation project due to the state\u2019s \u201ccurrent fiscal restraints.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Berkowitz issued a letter to the State Commissioner of Transportation Friday outlining his decision to pull funding for the Northern Access Project, which connects Elmore Road to Bragaw Street. Work on the project, which is also known as the U-Med District Road, will now stop, The Alaska Public Radio Network reported.<\/p>\n<p>Berkowitz said the project is not the city\u2019s highest priority. He is asking the state Legislature to re-appropriate the leftover $17 million to the Port of Anchorage, which he says is Anchorage\u2019s most immediate infrastructure need.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe current fiscal restraints facing the State of Alaska and Municipality of Anchorage have already forced significant cuts to capital programs that force us to focus on highest priority needs, not wants,\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n<p>Berkowitz noted that the Northern Access Project has been opposed by the majority of neighboring community councils. He also said there was no agreement between the municipality, the state and other interested parties on who will be responsible for possible cost overruns.<\/p>\n<p>Geran Tarr, who represents some of the communities that would have been impacted by the road, says she believes the mayor\u2019s decision was influenced by community concerns over the project\u2019s environmental and quality-of-life impacts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope this process encourages people that it can work out,\u201d Tarr said. \u201cYour voice can be heard\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Officials with the University of Alaska Anchorage have been longtime supporters of the project. Vice chancellor of administrative services Bill Spindle said several organizations stand in opposition of Berkowitz\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to all the other main organizations in the U-Med District, they\u2019re also disappointed,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I think you could probably rightly say we all are concerned about what the mayor decided to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANCHORAGE \u2014 Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has withdrawn the city\u2019s support for a controversial $20 million dollar transportation project due to the state\u2019s \u201ccurrent fiscal restraints.\u201d Berkowitz issued a letter to the State Commissioner of Transportation Friday outlining his decision to pull funding for the Northern Access Project, which connects Elmore Road to Bragaw Street. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}