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Verdant Neighborhood Fights for Trees: City Has Proposed Making West 35th Avenue Safer By Chopping Growth

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 June 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Rosemary Shinohara, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Jun. 13--West 35th Avenue is old Spenard, not a fancy place at all.

But the two-lane, barely paved road off Wisconsin Street rivals ritzier areas of town for prettiness. Spruce trees planted more than 40 years ago make a lush border. Old birch and cottonwoods hang over the road. It is a rare Anchorage street with a canopy.

The city has proposed to make the road safer and destroy most of the trees.

The plan -- to widen and add sidewalks to West 35th and McRae Road, which flow into each other -- disgusts some residents so much they've asked the city to kill the project.

"The project is just way beyond anything that's reasonable," said Leonard Deal, a longtime resident with five 45-year-old spruce trees on the line. The Spenard and Turnagain community councils have joined the protest against expanding the road.

Opponents say the city hasn't been responsive enough. But Mayor Mark Begich has said he's ready to talk.

This is a battle that's been replayed in other parts of town as the city and state try to bring old, sometimes haphazardly constructed roads up to new standards and change the character of the neighborhoods in the process.

West 35th and McRae would be rebuilt to meet standards for a "collector." That's a road that collects traffic from smaller neighborhood streets. The city would build a place to walk -- a sidewalk on one side, a bike path on the other -- where there's nothing now. The road would have paved shoulders 3 1/2 feet wide, where there's now a couple feet of dirt.

McRae Road and West 35th are shaped like one side of a pitchfork. McRae runs at an angle off Spenard Road, curves dramatically, and then becomes 35th on the Wisconsin end. The combined road is about three-quarters of a mile long. Fish Creek crosses under it, and Fish Creek and Woodland parks butt up against it. The homes are a mixture of mostly old houses, trailers and apartments.

An old Anchorage restaurant in a Quonset hut, the Garden of Eatin', lives on in the middle of the residential area, as does the Italian eatery Fiori d'Italia.

West of Wisconsin, the same road, West 35th-McRae, continues as Milky Way Drive. But they are nothing alike. Milky Way has curbs and sidewalks and a feeling of sterility. There is little natural growth. Instead of yards, tall fences line much of the road.

Deal, who owns a house with a circular drive and five tall spruce on West 35th, said when he first heard of the West 35th job, he figured he have to let the trees go.

"Once I found out an awful lot of people along the road were concerned about the trees, I decided I'm going to fight it myself," he said.

He believes most people along West 35th and McRae would like some improvements but not a project that more than doubles the cleared area.

The road now is 22 to 24 feet wide. The gravel shoulders would add five or six feet.

If the project were to go through, the cleared area with paved shoulders, a sidewalk on one side and a bike path on the other, each separated from the road, would be about 60 feet, said city project manager Steve Gillette.

Last month, the Spenard Community Council passed a resolution urging the city to cancel the project because of the neighborhood objections.

Last week, the Turnagain Community Council did the same.

"It's a nasty little road," said Turnagain council president Mark Wiggin. "But the problem was, the help they were planning to bring was just unnecessary."

The city proposed a $9 million project, most of it to be paid for from future bond propositions.

Neighbors who oppose the plan have formed a group, 35th and McRae Neighbors for a Safe Community.

The biggest hurdle is that the street was designated as a collector, "which is a big road," said Bob Curtis-Johnson, who lives two doors from Deal.

The road needs to be a collector because it connects Spenard Road and Wisconsin, said city traffic engineer Bob Kniefel. A lot of side streets flow into it, he said.

"It's used as a collector, maybe," said Curtis-Johnson. "But even if it's used as a collector ... why make it look like Wisconsin?" That road is wide and straight and runs between Spenard and Northern Lights Boulevard.

The neighborhood group really wants the city to bend its collector standards, Curtis-Johnson said.

"Let's repave, do a single sidewalk, some traffic calming."

So far, city standards have not been flexible enough for that.

Begich indicated Friday that he's willing to change that. He'll meet with neighborhood leaders and see if there can be a compromise, perhaps to make some bigger improvements on the McRae Road end and do minimal work on the other end, Begich said in an interview.

"If they say, 'Mark, hell, no, we're not interested,' then I'm moving on," he said, meaning he'll cancel the project.

Meantime, Deal and his neighbors have stuck small, orange flags across their front yards over the past several days to show where they think the new road and pathways would be and how many trees would be lost.

They're planning a rally Saturday to show their solidarity.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Anchorage Daily News

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