The View From ‘Nowhere’

I was in Alaska last spring and visited Ketchikan and found it to be a charming community. The bridge to the island makes perfect sense to me. People do not realize the remoteness of the various Alaskan communities. Good luck with that!

Whether or not Ketchikan deserved a bridge was never the issue in my opinion. Many voted for funding that would have helped build the bridge (including Biden and Obama). The issue was the Governor claimed she said "thanks but no thanks"....as the mayor of Ketchikan puts "not quite truthfully".

I am glad you wrote your view of the bridge to nowhere story. We don't know much about Alaska way down here near the Gulf of Mexico where we are buffeted by hurricanes and draught. You have ice, cold weather, and need to fly to many places because you just can't get there from here. I vaguely remember hearing about the construction of the oil pipeline. It is about time that we learned a little more about Alaska than about your representative (I don't remember his name, just his fame) who sent more money to Alaska than any other congressman ever got for his/her state. Down here in Texas, we pay our city/county/state and don't receive a nice bonus of oil money. Today I voted early and had the privilege of voting a healthy bond issue to improve the roads in our county. That means that we have to pay taxes to build our roads. Maybe this can help you understand why some of us think Alaskans should pay for their own bridges, the same as we do. If people want to live in a land where living is difficult, that is their choice. I admire the people who have the grit to take on the hardships that we see portrayed in documentaries on life in Alaska. Maybe Governor Palin???s being on the ticket in a national election will help us learn more about you folks up there. A lot of people thought the movie Giant was what Texans are like. I didn???t recognize anyone in the movie or book as being like anyone I ever knew, and I was born and raised here. That is just the way of writers trying to make their stories more interesting. .Good luck on trying to find a way to finance your bridge.

i was in Alaska last summer in Ketchikan and found it to be a charming community. The bridge to the island made perfect sense to me. Most people who have never been to Alaska can not comprehend the remoteness of the various towns in this state. I admire folks who are so hardy. Good Luck with that bridge!!

I used to live in Ketchikan as a child. I've been back several times and I constantly see people with items of clothing that have something to do with Ketchikan. So, I agree that Ketchikan is far from NOWHERE. It's a wonderful community that I am very proud to have been a part of.

I live in Seattle. Popupulation ~1.8 million. We've been waiting for a new bridge for well over a decade. It's probably going to be a toll bridge to pay for it. We're getting very very little help from the federal government. The projected cost is going to be about 10x greater than the Ketchikan bridge but we also have well over 10x the population. More like 100x the population. Furthermore we are only receiving about $500 million in federal funding. That means per person our bridge 'pet project' which is desperately needed costs the tax payers almost 100x more per person than 520 improvements.

Meanwhile Alaska has so much money from Oil revenue that they can hand out a $1500 dividend to every man woman and child. How about putting a decade of your dividends into a new bridge. I would even encourage the US Government to give out 25% to support you and make it only 8 years of dividends. Plus if you put a toll on the road for $4 and have 250,000 people a year (500,000 trips) that will contribute another 4 million a year. How about increase the tax on the airport as well. Sneak in another $2 per trip. That'll probably still be less than anchorage's airport tax. There's another $2m a year. In one decade of airport and tolls you'll have raised 60 million. If your town's people don't want to move maybe it'll be time to finally start charge your citizens nominal taxation for infrastructure like the rest of the country has had to do for centuries.

I've lived most of my life in a small town and from my experience It's always the small towns of America who claim to not want handouts (presumeably unlike some mythical segment of the population in big cities who does.) but also expect disproportionate per-capita government subsidies. Farm subsidies, the nicest/best maintained roads, lower cost of livingwhich translates into higher spending power per person, and yet still whines every time they're asked along with every one else to actually pay for the service the government provides in the form of taxes. If this bridge will revitalize the local economy. Take out a city bond. Treat the people who pay for the bridge like investors. "Give us $100m in bonds and we'll pay you back with interest when our population grows and pays higher taxes."

The cheapest most cost effective solution in this case is a ferry. We have dozens of ferry routes throughout the puget sound. And people ride them every day. If people live on the other side of the straight and need to ride the ferry every day then the culture of the town can shift. And if they're late to work: be understanding. If they miss a day of work: be understanding. It's a cultural shift that maybe our automotive based guaranteed arrival times has developed over the last 50 years. But we can return to a time in age when people would be understanding if you were 10 minutes late or couldn't travel due to weather. We have snow days in seattle where people can't make it to

Come on people... Stop being so innocent! Where do you think all of the highways and bridges that you drive on come from??? EVERY state applies for federal funds to do their public works / transportation projects. It would help everyone to better understand how things work if they would read, listen to the news, pay attention in their government and US History classes. Why do you think that so many people don't see education as a priority in this country? If you ae in ignorant bliss, it is much easier to get things past you. Do yourself a favor.