People living in Government Hill will tell you it might sound good at first, but the plan to build a billion-dollar toll bridge across Knik Arm doesn't pass the common sense test.
"I'm not paying no $10 (to go) back and forth," said Keum An, who owns Lee's Alterations near the gate to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Especially, she said, with the cost of gas and the fact that it isn't any faster to Wasilla than taking the Glenn and Parks highways.
"You think we need a bridge?" Tay Franklin asked me and the clerks at the Tesoro convenience store. He couldn't see the need for it, he said. The clerks shooks their heads, too. If they built it, one said, they'd probably be out of a job.
At the moment, the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, KABATA, does not have the funding plan together to build a bridge. But if you live or work in the neighborhood, that doesn't really matter. It also doesn't matter that the community council is dead set against it. KABATA's plan to carve a hole through the center of Government Hill is moving forward anyway.
KABATA has the money to buy up homes and businesses in the path of its proposed project. The first-phase plan calls for leveling the Tesoro, the new Subway store and the Sourdough Lodge along with a couple of houses. The second phase chews into the neighborhood on either side. KABATA would like to fill that space with a six-lane tunnel that would shoot traffic along where Erickson Street is now, down the hill, along the bluff past the Port of Anchorage and then over Knik Arm. Land owners could resist the sale, but KABATA has the power to take the land anyway under eminent domain.
The idea of eminent domain is that the government can take someone's property if it's for the common good. Maybe that makes sense with some projects, but the more I learn about this project, the more I think it doesn't make sense here, when it means hollowing out the city's oldest neighborhood for a bridge that may never come to be.
Some serious questions hang over the behemoth bridge, including whether the Legislature will appropriate the $150 million in state money that backers are seeking this year. Until recently the bridge was supposed to be paid for with a mix of private and federal money. Spending state money on the privately built and operated bridge doesn't appear to be a very popular idea. Even more controversial: Backers, who once promised the bridge would cost the state nothing, now want the state to agree to take on the financial risk if the bridge doesn't perform as envisioned.
Considering that the bridge's success hangs on what may be rosy predictions about population growth in the Mat-Su and projected traffic, that's a real risk. Last month Gov. Sean Parnell questioned the wisdom of the plan. So did Sitka Republican Bert Stedman, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. It's worth mentioning, too, that KABATA was funded with federal money years ago. Now that the billion-dollar bridge project to mostly undeveloped land has been dubbed a "Bridge to Nowhere," it has far fewer friends in Washington.
But back to Government Hill. KABATA spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy told me the authority was in talks with some landowners, but wouldn't say which. If it bought the hotel, where a number of people are living, KABATA would work to relocate them, she said. It would also help relocate businesses and the renters in two houses on Erickson Street.
But what would happen then? What if the project was delayed? What if it never happens at all? Would the buildings just be left vacant? Would they be torn down? Then what? McCarthy said she couldn't answer those questions. Each land deal would be different, she said.
The Alaska Railroad, which owns the land where the Subway building sits, has heard from KABATA, but the specifics have not been worked out, according to spokesman Tim Sullivan.
The railroad's board of directors and the Legislature have to approve any land sale. The authority must also negotiate with Subway to buy the building and compensate for improvements, Sullivan said.
Chris Wilson, vice president of Subway of Alaska, said his company was still gathering information about the plan.
"We've got a beautiful building and we spent a lot of money to renovate it, that's the disappointment," he said.
Tesoro said it couldn't comment on what was happening with its property. My call to Sourdough Lodge wasn't returned.
The more I learn about the bridge, the more I question whether it's really a good idea, especially if the state has to pay for it. State legislators, the governor, and many in Washington have similar doubts. So does Tom Layne, of Layne's Art & Frame in Government Hill. The financing plan seems ill-thought, he said, never mind what it will do to the neighborhood.
"I don't think we need a bridge so bad we're willing to sacrifice anything," he said.
Julia O'Malley writes a regular column. Read her blog at adn.com/jomalley, find her on Facebook or get her Twitter updates at www.twitter.com/adn_jomalley.
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