Background:​

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Alaska is overwhelmed with bad roads. In late July of 2023, in an effort to disguise the real project, the state moved a portion of the West Susitna Industrial Access road to the DOT and added it to the draft DOT STIP plan. 

 

The $82 million allocated for this portion of the industrial road could be used to fund existing road improvements or build other needed roads that have already been vetted and identified throughout Alaska. This sneaky shift in tactics to push through an unpopular project for industrial access isn’t fooling anyone.

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The DOT draft STIP plan allocated $82 million to build the first 15 miles of the Industrial road and bridge across the Big Su. The Big Su bridge is one of the largest expenses for this AIDEA project, and sneaking this funding into a DOT grant is a clever way to hide the full cost of this bad idea. Segmenting projects is a common tactic for AIDEA to progress bad projects that the public doesn’t want. This is an attempt to hide the full footprint and trajectory of this project.

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On January 19th 2024, the Alaska DOT sent out the 2024-2027 draft STIP plan to Federal Highways for approval. In addition to the document itself, all public comments made during the July to September comment period were sent to Federal Highways. 

 

Federal Highways reviewed the DOT draft STIP plan and has tentatively rejected the plan in its entirety, including Project 32406, West Susitna Access, due to a significant failure of DOT to adhere to and adequately follow the application process.

 

A 24-page document was released highlighting the many issues with the submitted plan that failed to follow the clear application guidelines from the Federal Government. 

 

While we have seen carelessness by AIDEA time and time again with their unpopular pursuit of the West Susitna Industrial Corridor, it was shocking to see the thoughtlessness with which the state pursued a laundry list of other projects within the state. This fumble had the potential to cheat Alaska out of over $5 billion in Federal funding and, consequently, lose the state thousands of jobs by potentially squandering an entire season of construction and improvements. The plan was resubmitted at the end of February 2024.  Concurrently, AIDEA continued to pursue the latter portion of the 100 miles industrial road. The STIP was later approved by Federal Highways with a number of amendments. 

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DOT Scoping:

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In early July of 2024, DOT announced that it would begin scoping for an Environmental Assessment for their portion of the West Susitna Access Corridor. Scoping began on July 23rd 2024 and will continue through August 23rd 2024. ​

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For more information, see DOT’s project website.
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