Guess what: There was a WAR on.
And somehow, I suspect it would not have been up to modern expectations if we tried the same technology.
Ferries are cheaper, do less damage, and keep a lot of rifraf out. (running and ducking)
Posted on 08/20/2005 4:25:48 PM PDT by neverdem
YOU have probably already heard about the pile of cash going to Alaska from the federal transportation bill. There's about a quarter of a billion dollars for a bridge to connect the airport on Gravina Island to Ketchikan (population 14,000). The bridge will rival the Golden Gate and Brooklyn Bridges in length and height.
Then there's $230 million or so for "Don Young's Way," a bridge between Anchorage and a swampy, undeveloped port, which is named for the man who got us the money, Alaska's lone congressman.
But it's the $15 million designated for a road between Juneau and Skagway that is dearest to me. Haines, the small town I live in, is close to Skagway - separated from it only by the waters of the upper Lynn Canal, which is not a canal at all, but the longest fjord in North America. The transportation money will go toward the first road ever to be built along the canal. Actually, the project will cost about $300 million to complete, but Gov. Frank Murkowski assures Alaskans that he'll get whatever he needs from the federal government.
The communities directly affected - Haines (population 2,400), Skagway (population 870) and Juneau (population 31,000) - have voiced opposition to the road for a host of good reasons: it is a waste of money; with at least two dozen avalanche chutes, it will be too dangerous to drive in winter, which is most of the year; we already have a fine ferry system that gets us just about everywhere we need to go in all kinds of weather; some places are too nice to be paved over.
Oh, and did I mention that the road won't fulfill its ostensible mission? The whole purpose of the new road was to connect Juneau to the Klondike Highway...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Guess what: There was a WAR on.
And somehow, I suspect it would not have been up to modern expectations if we tried the same technology.
Ferries are cheaper, do less damage, and keep a lot of rifraf out. (running and ducking)
A road was built in WWII, (as you well know) but it was inland, over much eaiser country, and out of the range of any Japanese gunboats. Trying to build up the coast would have been much more difficult.
NYT idiots think that Point Mackenzie across Knik Arm from Anchorage is swampland. I've hunted that land and its a lot drier and more stable than the mud and silt that Anchorage sits on.
They build I-10 through about 15 miles of this kind of land in Henderson Swamp, Louisiana.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Alaska Ranks number 2 in per capita Federal pork. Only New Mexico gets more bacon.
You get back $1.89 in Federal spending for every dollar you pay in federal taxes. Here piggy piggy. slop to the hogs...
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
You are the socialist who wants to bankrupt taxpayers through tax and give them nothing back.
Take, take, take... Must be your motto.
Texas has 22% of total US oil reserves, Louisiana has 22%, Alaska 20%, and California 18%.
Now, want to compare which state gets more TOTAL pork?
Per capita does not matter when you are build roads and ports
to access raw materials.
Wait till this winter, when you start paying your heating bill. You will think infrastructure in Alaska is a bargain.
Oh please. How much oil is the Ketchican airport gonna supply us for the 250 million? Need roads or ports in Valdez and ANWAR, we can talk. But don't tell me Alaska doesn't get a boatload of pork from the rest of the US.
Man. Bizzaro world. You want to pick my pocket for pork in Alaska, when you already get $1.89 for every dollar you pay in federal taxes and I'M a socialist? Tell you what. Alaska can have every dollar it pays in federal taxes back and we can call it even okay?
Per Person?
You know, most of Alaska is still in Federal ownership and off limits to development, roads, cabins, hunting, fishing, timber, mining, oil, gas, any kind of development at all. The few people that live in Alaska should be expected to overcome the limititations placed on the state by the rest of the US, of course.
Did you miss the part where she mentioned she lived in one of the towns? Kind of silly to attack someone's journalism when you haven't read the whole thing yourself.
Kind of a broad statement there. It's technically wrong in two points.
So, how many oil derricks are there within 500 miles of either Anchorage OR Juneau? Try again.
I live outside of Anchorage and 100% of my work involves support for the North Slope. The engineering is done in Anchorage. And Anchorage is out of space for construction of homes. I have people working for me that drive an hour to get here. The Knik Arm bridge will open up a lot of land for people to live and work supporting the North Slope and not spend a fortune driving to work.
Anchorage is the least densely populated city in the entire country. Out of room for new homes? Try building second stories. My city has 18,000 people per square mile--Anchorage has like 250. Cry me a river as you rob me blind.
If your work is oil related, you're already diverting plenty of money from more productive sectors of the economy.
My work is designing new drill sites to produce more oil. Do you honestly claim this is not important to our economy to raise our domestic production of oil?
Trying using private, available land for your comparison. Nobody has built a single story home up here for a long time. They crowd townhomes on top of each other all over the place. New single family dwellings are often built on lots that are not much home. I bought a 40 year old house so I could get 1/4 acre.
I'm sure it's very important, but there's no connection between doing your job to building a massive new bridge to nowhere at national expense. If Anchorage is so constrained for space that it needs the federal government to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into developing a swamp into a suburb, perhaps your company should consider locating elsewhere. Or perhaps the free market can manage the supply of housing within Anchorage's voluminous city limits. This is not a case for a huge subsidy.
So, build further up. Houses in my town are on 2,500 square foot lots. Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper for the federal government to buy up your 1/4 of an acre and put ten townhomes on it than to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bridge?
So you are in favor of goverment taking away peoples homes. Makes as much sense as the rest of your posts.
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