The 2025 Parks Bond is a crucial investment in Anchorage’s identity, economy, and quality of life. Our 11,000 acres of parkland, 226 parks, and 250+ trails define our city and provide free and safe spaces for recreation, community connection, and economic growth.
Anchorage’s outdoor recreation economy is booming. The same things we love for ourselves — that we are “urban and wild” and a “trails town,” also attract record numbers of visitors to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, Far North Bicentennial Park, Chugach State Park and to our restaurants, shops, hotels, and tours.
Anchorage voters have the power to ensure local funding for parks, trails, greenbelts, and recreation facilities, making us less dependent on state and federal dollars. Voter support for bond capital investments repair and maintain infrastructure that was built decades ago – for parks, trails, roads, public safety and schools. Let’s keep it going.
Parks and trails are also places where we bear witness to people experiencing homelessness. The good news is that thanks to voters, and a new federal ruling, Anchorage leaders have more tools to address this concern.
A US Supreme Court ruling in June of 2024 now allows the Municipality to enforce illegal camping, which they are doing. And thanks to voters and a variety of funding sources, the Municipality has resources to make progress on the community-based strategic plan.
In 2020, Anchorage voters passed a sales tax on alcohol, a portion of which goes to programs to find homes for those who need and want them, to clean up illegal camps in parks and trails, and to hire public safety crime analysts, dispatchers, and mental health first responders to help ensure our public spaces are clean and safe for everyone to use.
Housing is tracked through the Coalition to End Homelessness, which reports that 1,760 of the 3,070 adults, youth and families experiencing homelessness are in shelter and transitional housing. The Mayor and Assembly are working on multiple projects to create more affordable housing and participating in forums to work with the public on progress.
Illegal camps on parks and trails are the responsibility of Anchorage Parks and Recreation’s Healthy Spaces crews. This is a difficult job. When safety is an issue, Anchorage police will assist. Items left behind are sorted, with some going to storage for those who are able to retrieve them. On any given week, more than 6 tons – 12,000 pounds – of trash is hauled to the dump. Please join us in gratitude for the teams out there on the front lines talking to people from all walks of life and cleaning up our parks.
Our parks and trails also benefit from community investment through annual municipal park bonds. For 13 years in a row, voters have chosen to invest in our outdoor spaces, at the cost of less than $1 per month per taxpayer.
Park bonds, combined with efforts of the Parks & Recreation Department, Youth Employment in Parks, the Anchorage Park Foundation and other community organizations to engage neighbors to activate and improve our public spaces, help to keep them clean, maintained, and safe.
On the 2025 Parks Bond, 17 improvement projects are spread out across the city. Improving the dock at Sand Lake, building the Fish Creek Trail to the Coastal Trail, improving the parks along the Chester Creek Trail, upgrading the playground at Nunaka Valley North, adding lighting and amenities to downtown parks. There is a project for everyone to enjoy.
If approved by voters, Proposition 3 will continue our collective efforts to have safe, well-maintained, and accessible parks and trails—preserving our reputation as an urban and wild trails town, boosting property values, and strengthening local businesses.
