Draft Long-Range Transportation Plan and Freight Plan

What this means for the LRTP: Provide for and continuously improve the safety of the transportation system for all users.

LRTP Actions:

• Vulnerable Road Users. Utilize strategies in the Strategic Highway Safety Plan as well as proven and documented countermeasures to reduce serious injuries and fatalities for vulnerable road users.
• Safety Corridors. Improve designated safety corridors with timely, proven counter measures.
• Complete Streets. Implement a complete streets design model to improve safety and accessibility for all users.
• Safe System. Implement a safe system approach that takes a holistic, proactive, performance-based approach.
• Hazardous Habit Awareness. Increase public awareness campaigns on distracted driving, impaired driving, and safety restraints.

What this means for the LRTP: Enhance the quality of life for all Alaskans by strategically supporting all transportation modes to improve accessibility, safety, personal mobility, and interconnectedness with the intent of moving people and goods efficiently and equitably.

LRTP Actions:

• Equity Advisory Committee. Establish a statewide advisory committee tasked with expanding action around equity and transportation.
• Equity Strategic Plan. Develop a Transportation Equity Strategic Plan and Analysis Toolkit for use in evaluating the benefits and impacts of transportation policies and investments on historically-marginalized populations.
• Bypass Mail. Monitor and take all available actions for the continuation of the U.S. Postal Service Bypass Mail program.
• Filling the Gaps in Access. Adequately plan for and provide first- and last-mile public transportation and active transportation connections by completing gaps between service areas. Identify and quantify intermodal and multimodal gaps and barriers and consider whether a project addresses an existing gap as part of the project selection processes.
• Intermodal Connections. Prioritize activities and projects that strategically strengthen intermodal connections between roads, airports, railway, ports, and ferry/transit terminals.

What this means for the LRTP: Monitor and consider statewide economic trends such as job creation, access to jobs, and workforce training and plan for and invest in transportation infrastructure that facilitates and supports economic growth and lowers the cost of goods and services.

LRTP Actions:

• Port Authority. Evaluate creation of regional port authorities and/or a state port authority and consider the benefits of institutionalizing management of these facilities.
• Access to Resources. Work with stakeholders and the Department of Natural Resources to create a shared inventory of realized and unrealized state, regional or local resources; identify transportation system synergies; and prioritizes investments.
• Access to Communities. Work with stakeholders, communities, policymakers, and others to identify and prioritize critical community connections that provide new or improved access.
• Economic Conditions. Improve the resiliency of transportation connections to established and emerging economic activity centers and tourist destinations.
• Military Connections. Support the changing mobility and connectivity needs of Alaska’s military installations.



What this means for the LRTP: Plan for full life-cycle costs across the transportation system, including planning, construction, operation, and maintenance to improve funding allocation in a consistent and effective manner.

LRTP Actions:

• Asset Management and Preservation. Implement a formal and consistent process for linking asset management and preservation goals to project selection and scoping to reduce needed maintenance.
• Life Cycle Costs. Include consideration of long-term maintenance, operations, and life cycle costs for any modernized, expanded, or newly proposed facility.
• System Reinvestment Strategy. Establish a long-term system reinvestment strategy that includes criteria to replace or remove infrastructure from service at the end of its life.
• Standardized Asset Management. Standardize, measure, and report asset management practices that advance transportation infrastructure resilience.
• Modernized Asset Management. Modernize asset management practices by leveraging new technologies and data.
• Maintaining State Assets. Implement data-driven management systems to monitor the quality of all transportation assets.

What this means for the LRTP: Assess risk and invest in solutions to develop a transportation agency and system that will adapt to and recover from the effects of climate change, natural disasters, and other disruptions.

LRTP Actions:

• At-Risk Facilities. Identify and inventory assets that are vulnerable to flooding and inundation, and develop adaptation strategies, such as reconstruction, relocation, and protective infrastructure, to address existing and potential future weaknesses.
• At-Risk Facilities in Asset Management. Expand asset management decisions to address the long-term costs of known vulnerabilities, such as the need for retrofitting existing facilities or repairing certain facilities multiple times.
• Resiliency Plan. Develop a Resilience Improvement Plan that provides a unified framework of policies, protocols, and standards to help DOT&PF and its partners plan, prepare, and adapt to natural and man-made hazards and events.
• Resiliency in Project Selection. Incorporate resiliency factors into performance-based planning and programming frameworks.
• Port of Alaska Resiliency. Raise awareness of the statewide significance of the Port of Alaska as critical infrastructure.
• Workforce Resiliency Plan. Create a five-year workforce plan that outlines immediate and long-term personnel and workforce needs to deliver transportation and public infrastructure.
• Ways of Working. Adapt transportation occupations to reflect the changing nature of work, including technology, flexible hours, remote work, and data.
• Position Descriptions. Update job descriptions and positions.

What this means for the LRTP:Promote a sustainable, clean, equitable transportation system to reduce costs to consumers and businesses and provide wider social and environmental benefits.

LRTP Actions:

• Establish a long-term system reinvestment strategy that includes criteria to replace or remove infrastructure from service at the end of its life.
• Explore new, sustainable funding opportunities that keep pace with growth and inflation.
• Incentivize the transfer of state-owned and/or state-maintained local facilities that have no regional or statewide function to local ownership and local financing mechanisms.
• Implement innovative and cost-effective seasonal approaches to move people and good.



What this means for the LRTP: Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of transportation services by expanding DOT&PF’s coordination and collaboration with other levels of government, industry partners, and the public.

LRTP Actions:

• Modernize the Public Participation Plan. Update the statewide public participation plan to reflect current practices and equity considerations, including regular stakeholder engagement on planning policy and regulations from such entities as the Roads & Highways Advisory Board, Alaska Marine Highways Operations Board, Alaska Municipal League, Southeast Conference, Alaska Federation of Natives, and others.
• Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Alignment. Hold quarterly coordination meetings with MPOs to align the LRTP and metropolitan transportation plans (MTPs).
• Support Local Planning. Create a Regional Planning Organization (RPO) and/or Regional Transportation Planning Organization (RTPO) program to facilitate regional planning that is locally administered. Develop and support a planning grant program.
• Public Awareness of Metrics. Create an electronic key performance measures dashboard as part of DOT&PF’s website and update regularly.
• Public Awareness of Financials. Collect, maintain, and link transportation revenue and expenditures on an annual basis to report to the public and decision-makers about the state of the system.



What this means for the LRTP: Address prevailing transportation challenges using the best and most cost-effective modal, intermodal, or multimodal solutions to improve operational efficiencies and safety with careful consideration of life-cycle costs.

LRTP Actions:

• Capacity Inventory. Inventory available capacity of existing port, rail, aviation, marine highway, and roadway systems as well as maintenance facilities for consideration in addressing future needs.
• Minimum Service Levels. Define minimum service levels for all modes, so funding can be prioritized to maintain minimum service levels.
• Freight Mobility Solutions. Research benefits and tradeoffs of drone deliveries, bike delivery services, staging areas, loading zones, and pick-up centers.
• Protect Airspace. Update state regulations and statutes and coordinate with local jurisdictions on land use regulations to continue to protect airspace around airports.

What this means for the LRTP: Invest resources to improve access to data science, analytics, and informatics to implement data-driven evidence-based decision-making.

Advocate for and establish stable, diverse, and long-term funding sources for each transportation mode and explore innovative financing.

LRTP Actions:

• Family of Plans. Establish a family of plans and regular cycle for updating plans.
• Standardized Plans. Create a standard template and checklist of requirements for area, regional, corridor, modal, system, and functional plans that link to the LRTP goals and policies.
• Planning Statutes & Regulations. Assist in drafting effective and coordinated transportation planning statutes and regulations.
• New funding sources. Explore new, sustainable funding opportunities that keep pace with growth and inflation.
• Local Ownership. Incentivize the transfer of state-owned and/or state-maintained local facilities that have no regional or statewide function to local ownership and local financing mechanisms.
• Financial Reporting. Develop and implement standardized procedures for collecting and reporting annual financial information that will enable DOT&PF to provide an annual accounting of revenues and expenditures by mode, region, and project type.
• Administrative Costs. Develop a standard procedure for tracking and allocating administrative costs associated with DOT&PF projects and programs.
• Paperless Project Delivery. Monitor and pursue opportunities for paperless project delivery and other technologies to reduce cost and improve the speed of project delivery.
• Authoritative Data. Implement a “single source of truth” to be used statewide for transportation data and create a public-facing dashboard as part of DOT&PF’s website.
• Flexible Approaches. Implement innovative and cost-effective seasonal approaches to moving people and goods.
• Strategic Investment Plan. Develop a Financial Strategic Investment Plan as part of the family of plans. Adopt metrics for all modes to align with performance objectives. Adjust funding strategies to enable Alaska to make progress toward all family of plan goals.



What this means for the LRTP: Identify and plan for national trends and local innovations that have the potential to impact the provision of transportation services, particularly as they relate to safety, efficient freight movement, and work force needs.

LRTP Actions:

• Innovative Technology. Identify and prioritize technology pilot projects that address safety and efficiency and avoid investing in “technology for technology’s sake.
• Interoperability. Prioritize interoperability and standardization when adopting new technology to ensure that all modes can interact efficiently.
• Broadband Research. Conduct research that addresses the transportation system and workforce benefits of increased broadband access.
• Cybersecurity. Identify, respond to, and mitigate cybersecurity and data security threats related to transportation systems.
• Micromobility Pilots. Fund pilot projects.
• Mobility Integration. Identify responsibilities and projects for state, regional, and local agencies in mobility integration.
• Technology Integration. Improve systems and technology activities that support TSMO proactive approaches for improving mobility by integrating technology into transportation plans, designs, operations, and maintenance.
• TSMO Workforce. Develop organizational structures and workforce strategies to better support TSMO activities and maintenance.