The State of Alaska Department of Transportation is soliciting professional civil and geotechnical engineering services to perform a feasibility study for constructing a tunnel underneath Knik Arm, creating a new transportation corridor between Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.
According to the online public notice, the study “will address potential safety, mobility, and economic benefits associated with the proposed tunnel as an alternative to the existing Glenn Highway and will assess the feasibility of utilizing advanced tunneling technologies aimed at reducing costs and increasing boring speeds.”
DOT spokesperson Shannon McCarthy says the idea is to create a system of redundancy for transportation between Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley.
“Right now, we have the Glenn Highway, which you know carries about 35,000 cars a day, and it’s the only route. So, in the event of a natural. Disaster, there is only one option, and that is the Glenn Highway. So this would be creating an alternative to that,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy referenced the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that rocked the Anchorage and Mat-Su areas in 2018. At that time, thousands of Valley commuters had just arrived in Anchorage when the quake hit, creating a drive time of up to seven hours for them to return home to check on their homes and families.
The request for proposal (RFP) does not commit to any tunnel project but would provide necessary information on the possibility of such a project becoming a reality. McCarthy says the study itself is estimated to cost between $1 million and $2 million.
A more direct route to the Kenai Peninsula, like a bridge or a chunnel (a channel tunnel), has been a topic of water cooler discussion for decades. With Anchorage housing prices reaching all-time highs and housing availability diminishing, a commuter connection to the Kenai makes the idea more serious.
According to McCarthy, the results of an Anchorage/Mat-Su tunnel study would provide valuable information to a potential similar project heading South, although the DOT has not discussed this possibility much.
“I don’t know how much internal discussion there has been [on a tunnel to the Kenai Peninsula],” said McCarthy. “Tunneling technology has really changed over the last decade, and many more things are possible. So, I would assume that the feasibility study for this project would tell us a lot about tunneling in this area South.”
