Posted on 09/21/2005 9:38:38 PM PDT by Lorianne
Alaska's Gravina Island (population less than 50) will soon be connected to the megalopolis of Ketchikan (pop. 8,000) by a bridge nearly as long as the Golden Gate and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge. Alaska residents can thank Rep. Don Young, who just brought home $941 million worth of bacon.
A mess of thorny devil's club and salmonberries, along with an old chicken coop, surrounds the 40-year-old cabin where Mike Sallee grew up and still lives part time on southeast Alaska's Gravina Island. Sallee's cabin is the very definition of remote. Deer routinely visit his front porch, and black bears and wolves live in the woods out back. The 20-mile-long island, home to fewer than 50 people, has no stores, no restaurants and no paved roads. An airport on the island hosts fewer than 10 commercial flights a day.
Yet due to funds in a new transportation bill, which President Bush is scheduled to sign Wednesday, Sallee and his neighbors may soon receive a bridge nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and 80 feet taller than the Brooklyn Bridge. With a $223 million check from the federal government, the bridge will connect Gravina to the bustling Alaskan metropolis of Ketchikan, pop. 8,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
BS back at you. Alaska cannot develop most of its resources because Alaska does not own most of its resources. The iron heel of Fedgov and the Corporate lackeys rests on the neck of the state. Either get off the neck of the State or pay for development. Can't have it both ways and the State always getting the short end of the deal. That's how factions start. There is a look of steely resolve beginning to set into the eyes of Alaskans. We're running short of patience. It's 1824 again. Look it up.
Almost a billion taxpayer bucks. Jeeze.
If they have that much passenger business (100K inbound and 100K outbound) there seems to be enough volume there to justify a way on and off the island. Also, looking at the ferry business, I would guess that a bridge allowing vehicular traffic would have a very severe impact on the ferry business.
And, of course, you'd have to forecast impact on airport traffic in and out of the airport if there was some form of I just don't remember seeing that in any of the stories I've seen about this "bridge to nowhere".
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