Student Members: Keonhee Jang, Eric Jenkins, Bora Lena, Daniel Tedrick
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Vinod Vasudevan
Project Mentor: Chris Post, PE, Jesse Moose, PE
Description:
This project focuses on two municipal park land parcels surrounded by University property. Collectively, this area has been dubbed the “urban forest park” by UAA and Anchorage Park Foundation officials. The area includes Class A wetlands and mix of forested land owned by UAA, Municipality, and Chugach Electric. This land is mostly unused, but historically, several University of Alaska Anchorage and Wendler Middle School ski trails were located here. The traces of these trails are easily found. Currently, the UAA parcels are intermittently used for field courses, and the area is actively used by the Arctic Orienteering Club. There is no real pedestrian or bicycle access to or through the forest park, which is surrounded by UAA Drive, Northern Lights Blvd, Mallard Lane, and Career Center Drive. It is in the University’s and the Anchorage School District’s interest to create improved pedestrian transportation connections to and through these tracts of land, in particular to serve Alaska Middle College students who commute between King Tech and UAA. The UAA Master Plan proposes to improve access by trail from the portion of Chester Creek in these parcels to the Student Union. The vision of the forest park is to make these parcels accessible and to restore paths in the park for recreational and educational purposes. The first step towards meeting these goals is to study possible transportation access to and within these tracts and connections to existing non-motorized routes in the area. Projects identified shall enhance safety and accessibility for people of all ages and abilities. Integrate priority multimodal investments from city, state, and UMED stakeholder plans.
Project Team can expect to:
• Review existing master plans and studies related to the area
• Identify barriers to developing the tracts into an Urban Forest Park
• Interview clients and stakeholders to identify proposed access routes
• Investigate the site and conduct walk/bike audits
• Identify key infrastructure investments on adjacent streets that improve access to and through these tracts of land.
• Develop preliminary engineering drawings and cost estimates for the selected projects
Stakeholders include but are not limited to: University of Alaska Anchorage, Municipality of Anchorage – Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department, Anchorage School District – King Tech High School, Greatland Trust, Anchorage Park Foundation, Area Community Councils, Anchorage Soil and Water Conservation District.
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