The Glenn Highway, Gambell Street to McCarrey Street, Reconstruction Project is the result of a systematic planning process that has occurred over the last 20 years. Since the early 1980s, the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (AMATS), a federally mandated state-municipal transportation planning effort for the Anchorage Bowl, and the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) have generated a number of ideas and planning decisions that have shaped transportation needs and guided solutions for the Glenn Highway corridor. Three conclusions drawn from a review of these documents have guided the transportation planning for the Glenn Highway corridor:

• Planning documents adopted by elected officials have identified the Glenn Highway corridor as an important transportation route within the MOA and the state.
• Municipal planning documents implemented since 1982 have identified a need to improve the Glenn Highway corridor to alleviate congestion.
• Improvements to this corridor have been planned to involve the Glenn Highway between Gambell Street to approximately McCarrey Street.

First, the importance of the Glenn Highway corridor is noted across many municipal and state planning documents. As part of the National Highway System, the Glenn Highway and the 5^th and 6^th Avenue couplet are responsible for providing for the long-range movement of people, goods, and services, as noted in the 1997 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). Moreover, according to the 1982 Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan, the Glenn Highway is one of three major transportation corridors with the MOA, and the primary corridor for east-west vehicle movement into and out of Anchorage.  Its role is also noted in "Anchorage 2020," the most recent version of the Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan, as promoting highway/through-town efficiency.   A number of planning documents put forth a long-term vision for the Glenn Highway to carry the majority of the vehicle traffic. Some plans (such as the 1982 Anchorage Bowl Comprehensive Plan and the 1984 and 1991 LRTPs) identify the Seward and Glenn Highways as a connected freeway system to accommodate this need, while other documents (such as the 1997 LRTP) envision an expanded Glenn Highway using existing rights-of-way. No matter the configuration of lanes or the exact alignment, the history of these planning decisions indicates that the Glenn Highway is the corridor on which higher-speed vehicle travel into and out of the city is to occur (instead of parallel routes such as 15^th Avenue-Debarr Road or Northern Lights Boulevard).

• The 1982 "Major Corridors Study" (performed by DKS Associates for AMATS) analyzes Anchorage’s major corridors and recommends improvements needed to ensure that those corridors provide good levels of service to the year 2000. The Glenn Highway (termed the Northside Corridor in that report) is identified as needing improvement. The report explores a number of alternatives and recommends construction of a freeway extension from Bragaw Street across grade-separated crossings at Commercial Drive and Mountain View Drive north of East 3^rd Avenue to Ingra/Gambell Streets to meet level of service (LOS) goals.
  
• According to the MOA’s 1984 LRTP, a number of intersections and segments of the Glenn Highway in the project area were already operating (in 1983) at LOS D and F during the a.m. and p.m. peak hours. This plan also recommends Glenn Highway improvements as construction of a freeway extension from Bragaw Street across grade-separated crossings at Commercial Drive and Mountain View Drive north of East 3^rd Avenue to Ingra/Gambell Streets.
  
• In 1991 improvements in the corridor to alleviate congestion had not been completed, and analysis conducted as part of the LRTP continued to indicate improvements were necessary to provide a LOS at least equal to LOS D. All model runs of various system improvements (for example with and without Bragaw and Boniface extensions) completed as part of the plan indicate that improvements would be needed in the Glenn Highway corridor to bring the Glenn Highway up to LOS D. Rather than construction of a freeway in a new alignment, however, the 1991 LRTP recommends expansion of the Glenn Highway (up to eight lanes) in its current alignment between Gambell Street and Boniface Parkway.
  
• In 1994 a review of the planning factors from the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) identified the expansion of 5^th Avenue/Glenn Highway up to eight lanes as a project that could be affected by new requirements for congestion management.
  
• In 1997, no improvements had been made to address the congestion in the corridor. The 1997 plan still indicates the need for improvements (carrying forward the 1991 LRTP’s recommendations for the Glenn Highway) and identifies worsening congestion.

The 15^th Avenue Bypass (a road from the Glenn Highway through the corner of the Northway Mall, over Airport Heights Drive, around Merrill Field to connect to 15^th Avenue and eventually to the Seward Highway) was first proposed in 1982 in DKS Associates’ "Major Corridors Study." This idea was not carried forward in the 1984 LRTP, and both the 1991 and 1997 LRTPs explicitly reject connecting the Glenn Highway and Seward Highway via the 15^th Avenue Bypass. Instead the 1991 and 1997 LRTPs recommend improvements within the Glenn Highway corridor. Subsequently, the MOA has begun upgrading 15^th Avenue to reduce speeds and add enhancements, and the draft comprehensive plan, "Anchorage 2020" designates 15^th Avenue as a transit corridor. The conclusion of the history of these planning decisions is that the 15^th Avenue Bypass is not a solution available to this project.

Another important consideration are decisions regarding a Glenn Highway-Seward Highway freeway connection. The 1984 LRTP recommends a freeway standard throughout the Seward and Glenn Highways, and proposes to connect these two facilities in a new alignment north of 3^rd Avenue. However, while the 1991 and 1997 LRTPs explicitly call for a freeway standard on the Seward Highway between 36^th Avenue and 20^th Avenue, they do not recommend that this freeway standard continue north to intersect with a Glenn Highway freeway in a new alignment north of 3^rd Avenue. Moreover, while the 1991 LRTP supports a future Seward Highway-Glenn Highway freeway connection in an alignment north of 3^rd Avenue and recommends that it be studied further, the 1997 LRTP discards this option. The 1997 LRTP does not identify the shift of the Glenn Highway to a new corridor north of 3^rd Avenue or the need to connect the two highways. Instead the 1997 LRTP recommends expansion of the Glenn Highway in its current alignment between Gambell Street and Boniface Parkway. It does recommend, however, that Major Investment Studies be completed for both the Seward Highway and Glenn Highway corridors.

The review of the planning documents relevant to the Glenn Highway project provide a historical context to the a.m. and p.m. peak-hour traffic congestion problems within the corridor. The planning documents identify the Glenn Highway as the planned corridor for handling the majority of the traffic. These documents, adopted by elected officials, limit options for bypassing the bottlenecked area of the Glenn Highway corridor to the south of Merrill Field and explicitly call for expansion within the 5^th Avenue-Glenn Highway corridor as the alternative to be explored further.

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