Kirk Warns Alaska: Bridge To Nowhere Going Nowhere
By Darren Goode
CongressDailyPM
April 4, 2007
A disputed -- and dashed -- earmark is still alive, and its biggest foe says he might have to target it again. The Anchorage Assembly -- the Alaskan city's equivalent of a city council -- voted last month to place one of the "Bridges to Nowhere" on the city's list of planned projects. The Knik Arm Crossing Bridge -- renamed "Don Young's Way" in the 2005 surface transportation reauthorization bill after Alaska's GOP House member and former Transportation and Infrastructure chairman -- would connect Anchorage with the 22-person community of Knik. The transportation bill authorized $231.4 million for the bridge, but Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., added language in the FY07 Transportation-Treasury spending bill preventing money from going to either that bridge or the $223 million authorized for a second one connecting the city of Ketchikan with the island of Gravina, which has a population of about 50. Kirk's language became void when Congress was forced to lump FY07 transportation spending in a larger continuing resolution this year.
Now that Anchorage officials have kept the project on the drawing board, Kirk is warning that he might have to pursue appropriations language again this year. "I wouldn't spend any planning dollars on this," Kirk warned Anchorage officials in an interview last week. "The American people have made up their minds that this would be a poor allocation of money." A spokeswoman for Young did not return a call seeking comment. A Feb. 13 memo to the assembly from Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich supporting the bridge project said the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority was established to promote economic development. On March 13, the assembly recommended, 8-2, to add it to the list of projects. Anchorage Deputy Municipal Clerk Linda Heim said: "There are a lot of people opposed to it ... They took quite a lot of time and testimony on it."
A five-member committee of state and local officials -- including Begich and two members of the assembly -- must decide whether to put the bridge on the city's long-term transportation plan. This would trigger federal funding for the project. The 8,200 foot bridge is estimated to cost roughly $600 million, including private dollars that would be collected via a toll. Heim laughed when asked whether local folks refer to the bridge by the name bestowed by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to honor Young in the transportation bill. "No, it's still being called the Knik Arm Crossing," she said.
