Anchorage Advocates Close in on $1.3 Million in Federal Funds for Bikes

Earlier this month, Anchorage advocates celebrated a major step toward implementation of the region’s bike plan.

The Anchorage Metro Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS) is the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). AMATS has been reviewing how it would distribute federal dollars to transportation projects in Anchorage through 2014.

The Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage (BCA) saw the proposed budget and noticed that bicycles were largely left out of the equation, despite a bike plan they helped to develop. The plan was unanimously passed by the Anchorage Assembly in 2010, but implementation of it was not widely reflected in the budget.

More than 100 members and supporters of the Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage sent letters to the MPO’s Technical Advisory Committee – the committee that votes on the budget. Thirty-five bicyclists attended a Thursday afternoon meeting of the committee on November 1.

At the meeting, Committee member Lance Wilber, Director of People Mover (Anchorages transit system), proposed that by moving some of the $19 million around, $1.3 million could be shifted to implementation of the bike plan. The other committee members approved the revised budget.

But there’s more work to be done to pass the budget with these funds included…

Read more at AdvocacyAdvance.org.