Sponsor Statement for SB 263

Secondary Roads

SB 263 establishes a mechanism for upgrading Alaska’s graveled roads.

The premise is to upgrade and pave state maintained graveled roads by establishing a secondary road standard. Those graveled roads will then be ranked project by project, against other graveled roads - not against the major highway system or other paved roads. Increased ranking will be given to a road when the local government accepts transfer of the road from the State.

For many years now, the way a secondary road has received funds for upgrading is by competing for federal funding. The federal funds, around $220 million annually, are allocated by the Governor into three areas: the National Highway System (NHS), the Community Transportation Program (CTP) and the TRAAK. The roads under NHS receive the most funds and are for highways - the primary routes. The TRAAK is for trails and receives about $ 20 million and the CTP receives $80 million each year.

Every road in Alaska which is not a national highway competes for that $80 million under the CTP. Obviously, that's a lot of competition; there are more miles of non-highway roads than there are highway miles, yet there is less money in the CTP by the Governor's allocation. In fact, there are over 2,270 miles of graveled state maintained roads, with 70 miles in the Southeast Region, 273 in Central Region, and over 1,939 miles in the Northern region.

There are problems with secondary graveled roads in many areas of Alaska. The problem is not poor maintenance by DOT; the problem is the poor condition of the road itself. Without an ongoing road improvement program the problems only get worse.

SS SB 263: S(TRA): 2/10/98: mj