Alaska. The typical image of the state is a vast stretch of wilderness with towering mountains off in the distance. This fall, however, Alaska’s “Bridges to Nowhere” dominated the headlines and national image of the 49th state. One study found that more people could tell you about the two boondoggle bridges than could name Alaska’s congressional representatives.
What most people don’t know is that the bridges are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Governor Frank Murkowski has been pushing an agenda chock full of roads and bridges to nowhere throughout the state.
Road Block
Project promoters hit a bump in the road this fall when pundits and politicians called into question the $450 million set aside for the Knik Arm and Gravina Bridges. It’s easy to see why these projects became the poster children of pork.
The $328 million Gravina Bridge would link the island community of Ketchikan, population 13,000, with Gravina Island, population 50. Higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate, the Gravina Bridge would replace a five minute shuttle ferry ride to the airport on Gravina. Meanwhile, estimates for the proposed Knik Arm Bridge in Anchorage run anywhere from $600 million to $1.5 billion. The primary benefit of both crossings is to open up more developable land (read: sprawl). The Gravina Bridge has the added “benefit” of facilitating a proposed timber sale in a roadless portion of the Tongass National Forest.
The Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, a watchdog group advocating for a sensible transportation system for the state, brought the bridges to the attention of groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the conservative Heritage Foundation. The Taxpayers for Common Sense even gave Alaska Congressman Don Young (R) the Golden Fleece Award for his efforts to fund the Gravina Bridge.
Shopping List
However, it wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast that the nation truly took a hard look at our spending priorities. After endless editorials in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, front-page coverage in Parade magazine and countless letters to the editor, the Alaska delegation finally yielded by removing the bridge earmarks from the federal transportation bill.
But there’s a catch: Alaska got to keep the money. Congress removed the mandate that Alaska had to build the bridges, but there is also nothing stopping Governor Murkowski from moving ahead with them, or perhaps worse, spending the money on a slew of other controversial “roads to nowhere.”
There are certainly plenty of road proposals. As the Anchorage Daily News put it, “Governor Frank Murkowski’s enthusiasm to build roads knows few bounds. He wants to build roads the way beavers want to build dams.” Roads through wilderness areas, roads through the Tongass, roads to benefit the mining industry, roads to benefit the oil and gas industry, roads just for the sake of building roads. And then there are ports to be built to profit private corporations, dead-end railroad extensions, and of course, the bridges to nowhere.
Three of the most egregious projects are the proposed Juneau Road, the Stampede Road, and the Bradfield Canal Road.
The Juneau Road
The $260 million (or more) Juneau Road (see The Road RIPorter 3.3 and 5.6) is among the most immediate threats. Originally, the project was proposed to connect Juneau with the mainland. Currently, Alaska’s capital city is connected to the road system in Haines and Skagway by a state-run ferry that travels the Inside Passage. With an avalanche hazard so severe that the state Department of Transportation predicts the road would be closed for more than a month each year, it’s no wonder that residents in all three communities prefer ferry service rather than a road through North America’s deepest fjord. One resident felt so passionate about the issue that he swam the 92 miles between Skagway and Juneau in an epic nine-day protest.
The state changed plans last summer when they learned they could not build the road through a recreation area and historic site next to the Klondike Goldrush National Historic Park. The proposed road will now dead-end 18 miles south of the continental road system — but not before slicing through some of the most spectacular habitat in the Tongass National Forest, including the beloved Berners Bay. The proposal entails a shorter ferry ride and a longer, more dangerous and less convenient drive to the capital city — now it really is a road to nowhere. Construction could begin this summer.
The Stampede Road
More than 40 years ago, pioneers traveled the boggy Stampede Trail to reach antimony and placer gold mines, within the borders of what is now Denali National Park. The mines have since closed, and while the first four miles of the route is now speckled with residential development and small lodges, the remaining 80 miles have readily receded into the wilderness. The area is excellent habitat for wolves, caribou, and tour operators seeking to give their clients a taste of wild Alaska.
Plans to piecemeal the Stampede road extension could ruin all that. Local officials, tour operators, residents, and the National Park Service are all opposed to the project. Many fear the state will push the sub-standard road to the border of Denali National Park and then sue to establish a right of way through wilderness designated sections of the Park to complete a loop with the existing Park road near Wonder Lake.
The Bradfield Canal Road
There seems to be little that can discourage Governor Murkowski’s road building efforts. In 1997, a Department of Transportation study on the proposed Bradfield Canal Road concluded that “[W]e have no compelling reasons to spend more public money on more detailed corridor studies. The project won’t work.” Nearly a decade later, however, the state continues to pour tax dollars into studying the project.
As currently proposed, the $315 million Bradfield Road would start in the middle of the wilderness (travelers who wished to reach the road-head from Southeast Alaska would still have to take ferries). The 86-mile road would stretch across the border to connect with the desolate Cassiar Highway in Canada. In order to pave a region so rugged that it achieved a perfect score in the Forest Service’s roadless review, engineering studies predict the route would need a mile and a half long tunnel at an eight percent grade. The state plans to kick-off an official Environmental Impact Statement later this year.
Still Time to Cancel the Check
Before meaningful work progresses on any of these projects, the state legislature needs to approve significant sums of match money. Previously, the republican-lead legislature followed the Governor’s lead on transportation issues, but the state is now awakening to the fact that funding for the mega-projects will take funding away from desperately needed repairs to our existing road system.
There are certainly plenty of needs: the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that roughly one-third of the state’s existing roads and bridges are in poor condition.
The Alaska Transportation Priorities Project (ATPP) has been working with communities, travelers, unions, and state legislators on both sides of the aisle to identify and fund the state’s outstanding transportation needs. In a state that’s two and a half times the size of Texas with a population density of approximately one person per square mile, it’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all answer.
In urban areas people are concerned about teeth-rattling potholes, life-threatening curves, and overcrowded intersections. In rural areas, on the other hand, concerns include asthma-inducing dust from dirt roads, along with ports, harbors, and airstrips that connect bush villages with metropolitan areas. Alaska’s ferry system is key to connecting coastal communities.
Transportation improvements in nearly every community have been axed under the Governor’s plan and no one is happy. Mayors of the state’s three largest boroughs including the Municipality of Anchorage signed a letter urging the state to “fix it first.”
Unfortunately, Alaska’s lone Congressman Don Young hasn’t gotten the message. Recently he said that building the bridges to nowhere is far more important than filling potholes and fixing dangerous roadways. The Governor’s solution: a multi-million dollar public relations campaign to make America forget just how greedy the 49th state really is.
Meanwhile, the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project and their growing number of allies will continue to work in the real world for a more sensible use of Alaska’s transportation dollars.
— Emily Ferry is the coordinator for the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project. For more information about how you can get involved, contact Emily at emily@aktransportation.org.
Alaska’s Other Roads to Nowhere
Alaska’s Governor Frank Murkowski has promoted a long list of bridges and roads to nowhere. Most would subsidize the timber, mining, and oil and gas industries to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Pebble Mine Road – The state is currently considering a 100-mile road to facilitate development of the proposed Pebble Mine. If constructed, the mine would be North America’s largest open pit gold mine and would sit squarely in the headwaters of some of the world’s most productive salmon runs.
Donlin Creek Mine Road – Two roads totaling over 90 miles proposed for Southwest Alaska would link ports on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers with the proposed Donlin Creek gold mine.
Bullen Point Road – The proposed 50 mile road would stretch East from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The road would subsidize Exxon’s attempts to develop oil and gas fields on the doorstep of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Nuiqsut Road – The project would include a bridge over the Colville River, the largest river on the North Slope, and is also intended to subsidize the oil and gas industry. In the past, similar roads have been paid for by industry, not the public.
DeLong Mountain Port Expansion – This $75 million port expansion would be funded in part with public funds and would support the Red Dog zinc mine, in Northwest Alaska, currently Alaska’s single most toxic site.
Cross-Baranof Road – This 45 mile road would stretch from Sitka across Baranof Island in the Tongass National Forest. Road access could make numerous currently uneconomical timber sales viable and poses risks to the ancestral lands of the Tlingit people.
Railroad to Siberia – In talks with former Russian President Boris Yeltsin last year, Governor Murkowski stumped for a 42-mile railroad tunnel under the Bering Straight to connect Alaska with Russia.