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Anchorage's Far North Bicentennial Park was dedicated in 1976 for the following reasons:
A quarter of a century later, Anchorage's new Comprehensive Plan reaffirmed that the overriding value in Anchorage remains "we value natural open space." When we determine how land in Anchorage is used, we should look at ways to maintain natural open space while meeting the other needs of the community.
Friends of Bicentennial Park is committed to keep these lands in a natural state for the benefit of future generations.
This
website is always "under construction." The Park is
"under construction," too! Far North Bicentennial Park
is often considered "free" land for any number of
projects. Just natural open space waiting to be developed!
The biggest green area on the map at the right is Bicentennial
Park. On the north it is bordered by Tudor Road. On the south by 
Abbott Rd. On the west it is
mostly bordered by Abbott Loop Road. On the east, it is bordered
by Chugach State Park. The large white area in the center is the
Bureau of Land Management's Campbell Tract facility.
It's a big Park! This Park really makes Anchorage a special place to live. While it is far from being undeveloped, it is full of places where you can go and feel like you are far away from the crowded metropolis.
In creating this park, the Anchorage Assembly adopted in 1974 the Far North Bicentennial Park Master Development Plan as the "Official Plan for these Parklands". The 1974 plan is part of the requirements attached to the land when it was transferred by the federal government. The 1985 Updated Master Plan confirms that "the subsections of this updated plan contain recommendations in concert with the intent of the 1974 document.
The objectives of the Park mandated in these plans are:
Those are lofty goals and
have resulted in a Park that is immensely popular. The area is
crisscrossed with trails used for skiing, dog mushing, running,
biking, walking, horse riding... you name it! Some of the trails
are 40 feet wide and lit for winter skiing, others are thin
tracks, closed in and quiet. There's a beginner downhill ski area
and a horseriding concession. The entire area is heavily used all
year long.
It is big, but Bicentennial Park gets smaller every year as
more and more people vie for less space. The Bragaw extension
forced the dog mushers into areas others now use. The "East
48th" Extension will creat a new park boundary south of
Tudor with more overpasses and underpasses for trail users. The
Extension of Dowling will reroute trails users more. The
potential expansion of the Hilltop ski area will squeeze the park
from the southeast corner and require replacement trails.
Ballfields fields knocked off the southwest corner. As Anchorage
grows, we’ll need more undeveloped park land, not less.
The many thousands of users of Bicentennial Park make up a large but unorganized group with a quiet voice. Small, well organized groups make their voices heard over ours. If you like it wild and open for multiple users, you have to pitch in and work as hard as the people who want to turn it to their own single uses.
For a little history of the development of Far North Bicentennial Park, click here.
For information on the size of the Park, click here .
Boniface/East 48th Roads Extension
This road was originally proposed in the Tudor Plan as a
winding 2 lane road. Now a 4 lane arterial will cut through the
north part of the Park! Click that link to see a bird's eye view
of the route. The recommendations for trails and connectivity in
the FNBP Trails and Pedestrian Circulation Study Phase 1 area
have been completed. For recommendation details contact
Holly Spoth-Torres, Park Planner at 343-4585
Click here
for more info.
Tudor Road Area Plan This Plan deals
with the land at the north end of the Park along Tudor. This land
will be between Tudor and the Boniface/E 48th Extension when that
is completed. The land this plan addresses looks like Park land
now, but it is zoned "PLI" for a variety of public
uses. The Park master plan put strict criteria on what can be
done there. It looks like those are being ignored.
Trails Plan for Far North
Bicentennial Park All the fuss over the ski club widening the
trails a few years ago showed the need for a sensible plan for
putting in new trails in FNBP. The trail plan should be done in
Spring of '09. In the meantime a system of singlrtrack trails was
approved for construction in '08 and '09.
Anchorage Water and Wastewater
Utility water pipe through the Park.
The final segment of AWWU's Loop water Transmission Main
may be routed through Bicentennial Park to connect the water
tanks on Tudor Road with the tanks off Abbott Rd next to Service
High.
Invasive
Plants! This is a new kind of tourist! More and more
non-native plants are invading Anchorage and causing problems for
our native plants and wildlife. For some info on these, see the MOA
Weed Warriors website and the Alaska
Committee for Noxious and Invasive Plants.
Elmore/Bragaw/Abbott
Loop Extension
This road was battled over for many years. It opened
Friday December 14, 2007. Click here for information on the Bragaw Extension.
East
Dowling Road Extension & Reconstruction Project
Every road breeds more roads. Before Bragaw was extended, plans
were already made to conect it to Dowling. This road is in the
planning stage now and construction is scheduled for 2008. For
more info: www.eastdowling.com
. What will be next?
Capital
Improvement Program for 2007
Here's what the Municipality has to say about the capital
requests for 2007:
Far North
Bicentennial Park (Full Brochure 2.65MB)
Map (238KB)
Hillside Trails
The Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage (NSAA) Trails
Group built a new classic skiing only trail to connect Service
High with the Richter Loop. This includes smoothing and some
widening of the Richter Loop.
Dog Mushers get squeezed.
Construction of the Bragaw/Abbott Loop Extension forced the
Alaska Sled Dog & Racing Association (ASDRA) to find a new
location to start races and they had to reroute their trails.
Anchorage
Parks Plan
The Anchorage Bowl Parks Plan provides
minimum standards for levels of services and facilities that will
guide where Anchorage spends its Park dollars. While the plan
acknowledges broad support for wild open space, trails and
undeveloped park land, its heavy emphasis on comparisons with
"benchmark" cities and their parks drags the report
towards a bias for developed parks and buildings and the huge
costs that come with them.
Park Land for sale?
The city's proposed Land Use Map released in Spring of 2006
suggested that part of Bicentennial Park could be put up for
sale. emails from Friends of Bicentennial Park to city planners
and others got a quick correction. An editorial in the Anchorage
Daily News also made the case to withdraw the suggestion that we
should be selling off park land.
Anchorage
Parks and Recreation Survey shows overwhelming support
for open space parks and trails.
The 1st wave mailing of the survey was conducted Feb 18, 2005, reminder phone calls to complete the survey were made March 21, the 3rd and final wave was mailed April 5. Over 300 surveys were returned for a 21% response rate
Take a look at the Anchorage Parks & Recreation Survey 2005. If you are in a hurry, skip to pages 8 and 9.
The Far North Bicentennial Park Trail
Users Group meets the first Monday every month at the BLM offices
off Abbott Loop road at 6:20pm. Click
Here for recent agendas
and other notices.
No Mitigation for the
Simonian Little League Complex? To give balance to
the dramatic change in the Park Plan when the Simonian Little
League fields were approved, an agreement to add a similar amount
of land to the Park was included as "mitigation." In
2005, three years later, freshman Assemblymember Dan Coffey
challenged that agreement. Click
here for more info!
Abbott
Loop Community Park (or Simonian Ballfield Complex)
When the ballfields were approved, there was a promise
that additional land would be added to the Park. On January 10, 2006 the Anchorage Assembly approved land
to be added as the mitigation. Voting against the ordinance were
Dan Sullivan, Chris Birch and Paul Bauer.Ordinance No. AO 2005-58.
Having been utterly defeated in the battle for the southwest corner of the Park, in some ways maybe we should be happy getting anything. 27.5 acres for mitigation seems sparse, though. That's particularly true when the mitigation is also for the Chuck Albrecht fields. That's double dipping!
But the giving doesn't end for the ballfields! This "least cost" site is sure sucking up the dough! The State House approved in the '05-06 budget another $500,000 for the ballfields!
The site plan for the new ballfields was approved in March 2004. Click here for more info: Lost Corner
The picture at the right shows former Mayor George Wuerch at the Abbott Loop trailhead as clearing for the Little League complex is about to begin on February 10, 2003.
Simonian
Little League Fields
Baseball took a bite out of the Park! A group requested
25 acres in the Park to build Little League Baseball fields at
the Abbott Loop Road trailhead. This turned into an unfortunate
battle with the wild park losing. For more information click on Simonian Little League.
Logging
in the Park
The threat of wildfire in Anchorage caused by the spruce bark
beetle epidemic has lead to some strategic, and some not so
strategic, clearing in the Park. For more information, click here.
BLM
Land Up for Grabs? Good news!? Uh-Oh
..........
The Municipality of Anchorage and State may may try to gain control of this land. See BLM Land for more information on this issue.
Hilltop
Ski Area
Hilltop Ski Area is a
small beginner ski area in the Park. The company that operates
the area planned to more than double their slopes. The area they
planned to clear-cut is mostly flat and unsuitable for downhill
skiing. It is an excellent area for other year-round uses. There
is alot of information on this issue if you follow the links.
Click Here for Info on
"Proposition 1 Hilltop Expansion" from April 4, 2000.
Click here to see Hilltop's New
Lease and progress reports
Antennas
in the Park?
Wireless communication requires lots of antennas. Should antennas
be allowed in Bicentennial Park?
Click antennas for more info.
A letter to the editor can inform lots of people. Write one! They prefer 250 words or less. E-mail your letter to:
The Anchorage Daily News at letters@adn.com
The Eagle River Star editor@alaskastar.com
If you'd like to read letters concerning the Park written with various various viewpoints, click the links below:
For a look at pictures taken along the parts of the Spencer Loop trail that will be clear cut for Hilltop Downhill Ski Area, click here.
If you have, pictures, email them and we'll post them!
Municipality of
Anchorage
Singletrack
Advocates
Nordic Ski
Association of Anchorage
Arctic Orienteering Club
Arctic Bicycle Club
Hilltop Ski Area
Anchorage
Waterways Council
Bragaw Extension
Anchorage
Voter Info.
Campbell Creek
Science Center
Anchorage Citizens Coalition
For info on Urban Parks and why we need them
For contact information for people who make decisions concerning Bicentennial Park, click on contacts.
A letter
to the editor can inform lots of people. Write one! They prefer
250 words or less. :
The Anchorage Daily News at letters@adn.com
The Eagle River Star editor@alaskastar.com
Anchorage Municipal Assembly members. For email
addresses go to our Contacts page.
Stay
informed! Add your name to our contact list! email Sandra Talt and she'll add
you to the list!
Send
email to everyone you know and ask them to look at this site.
Put our
link on your website! Copy the icon and send people our way!
It
takes money! We need some of yours! Print this form and
send us a check! Donation Form
Stay informed! Get on the FOBP maillist. Click Here!
This
website is maintained by Friends of Bicentennial Park to
provide information on Anchorage's Far North Bicentennial
Park.