The View From ‘Nowhere’

There is no "Plight" in this community because of a lack of a bridge. As someone stated below even during the winter ferry's run every half hour. If there was an economic return on this bridge it the community or the state could get a loan to build it. However, there is no economic return on this project approaching anywhere close to $400 million to justify it. The people who continue to argue that it should still be built are the same ones not realizing that as a country we continue to borrow money to build projects like this. And that's without considering the costs for maintenance and upkeep of projects like this. In these environments and climates just the costs for maintenance are considerable

I disagree with the comment by rube. Yes, we have enormous problems facing the entire country, but that does not diminish the plight of this community to have consistent access to their own airport. These aren't a "few hundred people" - this is a community of over 14,000 (small by lower 48 standards perhaps, but the 4th largest community in Alaska). Bear in mind, that wherever you might live, you probably have roads that lead to just about anywhere you need to go. Alaska is one large wildnerness with a few widely separated cities and towns and more often than not, there are no connecting roads between any of them. I think the article written by the honorable Mayor of Ketchikan is well laid out and includes one very important point: the origin of earmarks WAS the way taxpayers, who supported their candidates to represent them in government could be heard and get projects completed to help their communities. I would venture to say, that somewhere in your community's past, there was a congressional earmark that helped you out!

I disagree with the comment by rube. Yes, we have enormous problems facing the entire country, but that does not diminish the plight of this community to have consistent access to their own airport. These aren't a "few hundred people" - this is a community of over 14,000 (small by lower 48 standards perhaps, but the 4th largest community in Alaska). Bear in mind, that wherever you might live, you probably have roads that lead to just about anywhere you need to go. Alaska is one large wildnerness with a few widely separated cities and towns and more often than not, there are no connecting roads between any of them. I think the article written by the honorable Mayor of Ketchikan is well laid out and includes one very important point: the origin of earmarks WAS the way taxpayers, who supported their candidates to represent them in government could be heard and get projects completed to help their communities. I would venture to say, that somewhere in your community's past, there was a congressional earmark that helped you out!

Bravo - I wonder what the Twin Cities would have done if we had determined that rebuilding their bridge was unnecessary. They could get a couple of ferrys!

Rube I don't believe the problem was "fine line contracts". Every person that got into these adjustable rate loans that couldn't afford them is just as guilty as the companies that gave them the loan. I live in L.A. and rent a house. Our neighbor next door bought his $515,000 house on a 16 dollar an hour salary. Both him and the company that loaned him the money and the thousands like them are the ones responsible for this mess. It doesnt take a CPA to realize that these people should never have been loaned the money they were given. It's time to tighten up our belts and take this credit crunch the whole country is going to experience.

Well, the first true question should be whats the cost effectiveness of using a ferry vs. a bridge? I'd like to see some numbers there, and then we could truly see the difference of using a ferry based system and when the bridge might "pay for itself". But seriously I doubt if this community even generates 40 million dollars a year in revenue. It makes no fiscal sense to invest in this bridge for the federal govt. Just because it "would be nice" is no reason to spend half a billion dollars on a project like this, and this is what has gotten us in our present financial mess. It's time to return to fiscal common sense based on the model of economic costs vs. return.

Seattle, huh? Who paid for the Freemont Bridge or the Montlake Bridge or the waterfront freeway crossing to Bellevue. Are you telling me no federal dollars were ever used for those projects? How about the rest of you...did your states pay for all their highways and trains with state money alone? Absolutely not.

So where did the money go? A bridge would be at least, something to point at.

I agree with most of the readers in that these "earmark" projects are a joke. They have been misused by politicians to keep themselves in office while wasting money that should go to other needed services (i.e. paying off the national debt, social security, medicare). There is no need for a $400 million dollar bridge to an airport while the economy is in the condition it is in and there is viable connections via ferry. Sarah Palin was justified in remarking that she helped kill this project as it should have been. Americans reliance on borrowing from other countries is what has put us in this mess, and until we turn our budgets around and pay our debt we will be a country relying on others. This is not the model our forefathers based this country on, and I believe to continue to borrow to finance projects like this and other "earmarks" is putting us down a path that is paved with problems.

That's what's wrong with this country: why can't every town of 14,000 people and 90 minutes by plane to a major metropolitan center be granted 400 million dollars in federal funds to make it "somewhere"? I blame Bill Ayers.

Why should your little island get money that could be used to fix 80,000 bridges in the lower 48 that are tagged as a disaster waiting to happen? Use a ferry like they've used in New York from Manhattan to Staten Island for the last 100 years.

I enjoyed your honest Alaskan perspective. I haven't been to Alaska since my 1986 honeymoon, and did not make it to your town. But I do recall the complete lack of roads in the state and the complete dependence on small planes. Even though I have lived my life in California and have traveled through wide open spaces of the West, I found the remoteness of communities in Alaska astonishing. You guys are bigger than Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico put together and have like maybe five highways, and I don't think any of them are federal highways. I'm sorry your bridge got singled out.

Uh, let's see. This is a state that gets so much money from oil revenues that each resident, including babies, got a $3,500 check this year alone (about $1.7B total). So explain to me again why $250M US tax dollars should go to build a bridge to a city with less than 7,500 residents?

Again, why a bridge exactly? Why not spend a fraction of the $400 million to improve the current year-round ferry service. Currently the ferry runs every 30 minutes in the winter, and every 15 minutes in the summer. Spend a few million to make it 15 minutes year round.