Bridge to nowhere

[fishdog]

Hi Alaskan Countrymen,
My congressman sent out a letter yesterday talking about cutting government spending to pay for Katrina. One thing mentioned was a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. What is he talking about, and is it something Alaskans need?
Thanks for a reply even though it is not about the hunting.

[Ak_Red]

Alaska's Gravina Island is home to 50 people and more than 350 Sitka black-tailed deer. Under the U.S. highway bill passed last month, this group will get a $223 million bridge taller than the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

The funding is among $1.04 billion that Alaska lawmakers secured for transportation projects, making the state the envy of its neighbors in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The states of Washington and Oregon, with a combined population 15 times that of Alaska's 650,000, each received about $500 million sought by lawmakers for transportation projects in their home states under the bill signed by President George W. Bush on Aug. 10.

Alaska owes its bounty to Congressman Donald Young, a Republican who heads the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation Committee and has told voters he used his position to enhance Alaska's share. A second bridge, spanning 2 miles in Anchorage, to be called ``Don Young's Way,'' got $229 million.

In Alaska, Young is feted. An Aug. 14 editorial in the Anchorage Daily News said Young, the state's lone congressman for 32 years, had secured his legacy. ``We're in total support,'' says Kay Andrew, 62, co-owner of the Gilmore Hotel, a 78-year-old lodge on Front Street in Ketchikan, Alaska, where the bridge will connect the 8,000 local residents to Gravina Island off the state's southeastern coast.

The bridges are less popular in neighboring Washington State, which got $231 million for its highest-priority project, to replace an earthquake-damaged viaduct in Seattle traveled by 110,000 vehicles a day.

``If you look at it on a per-capita basis or a traffic congestion basis, it seems a little unfair,'' says Larry Ehl, 48, federal liaison for the Washington Department of Transportation. ``Some people in Seattle were disappointed.''

`Many Needs'

Rising 200 feet above water, almost twice as high as the 119-foot-high Brooklyn Bridge, the Gravina Island bridge will span 6,300 feet in two sections, crossing the Tongass Narrows to Ketchikan, a popular stop for cruise ships. It replaces a ferry that local residents and tourists now use to reach the airport on Gravina Island, which had also been home to a pulp mill that closed in 1997.

``Public money was used to build infrastructure throughout the United States,'' says Bob Weinstein, 54, Ketchikan's mayor. ``Alaska is in something of a catch-up position, being a young state with many needs.''

The bridge is one of about 6,500 projects included in the $286.5 billion transportation bill. Critics such as U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Republican, say the bill included too much funding for local projects.

`Bridge to Nowhere'

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks government spending, called the Gravina project ``the Bridge to Nowhere'' in a report on its Web site. It estimates the bridge will attract 1,000 vehicles a day, at an average cost of $43 per trip. That compares with 500,000 vehicles a day, at a cost of $4 each trip, that use Boston's $14.6 billion Big Dig underground highway system.

Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, says the project amounts to a political payoff for residents of Ketchikan. ``Write everyone a check -- it's cheaper,'' he says.

Young's office didn't return three telephone calls seeking comment. At an Aug. 15 press conference in Anchorage, Young, 72, dismissed the criticism.

``I'd be silly if I didn't take advantage of my chairmanship,'' Young said, according to the Anchorage Daily News. ``I think I did a pretty good job.''

Longer Route

The funding for Alaska's two bridges also surpasses the $150 million that Oregon received to rebuild spans along Interstate 5, the main north-south highway on the West Coast, according to Jason Tell, policy and planning manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation in Portland.

While he declined to comment on Alaska's funding, Tell says Oregon was pleased with its own share. ``That money is going to ensure there won't be bottlenecks of freight,'' says Tell, 34. ``We had bridges that were deteriorating all at once and we were weight-limiting bridges.''

There may be bottlenecks in Ketchikan, too, only after the bridge opens, says Robert Neswacky, 59, a retired surveyor who spoke by telephone from Arctic Bar between sips of a Rainier beer one afternoon. Instead of walking onto the ferry downtown, visitors will have to drive south of the city on Tongass Avenue to reach the bridge crossing and then head north through Gravina Island, Neswacky says.

``I think it'll take a little longer,'' he says.

[Ak_Red]

Alaska needs work on its highway system. For those who want to bring more people in to the state, projects like this will be needed. I do not know if THAT particular bridge would help the state, though. Not building it would be fine with me. I like Alaska the way it is. It's 2.5 times the size of Texas and has fewer people living in it than in the city of Dallas, and some of those could head south and not bother me. I can not wait to get back up there.

David

[summitx]

Fishdog. what Federal funding is your state going to give up