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Without bridge, Gravina Island gets road to nowhere
By Lori Tipton
KTUU 2 NBC News (Alaska)
November 17, 2008
KETCHIKAN, Alaska -- The city of Ketchikan [Alaska] became a national punch line thanks to the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere."
The bridge would have linked the airport on Gravina Island to the city -- currently, travelers have to take a five-minute ferry ride across the Tongass Narrows -- but the $223 million earmark quickly became an example for the campaign against congressional earmarks.
But even though Gov. Sarah Palin scrapped the bridge plans last year, even after Congress withdrew the earmark, the project isn't finished. While the bridge hasn't been built, the road connecting it to the airport has.
Assembly member Mike Painter is a longtime Ketchikan resident. His father helped build the airport in the early 1970s. That was when Washington delegates promised the city that a hard link to the airport would someday be built, Painter said.
"In my opinion, it's not a bridge to nowhere, it's a bridge to our airport, which is vital to the community," Painter said. "We've been waiting 30 years or so ... for that to happen."
Ketchikan has little room to grow because it borders protected wetlands and forests. But Gravina Island, just a quarter-mile away, is more than 20 miles long and 10 miles wide. A bridge would allow the city to expand.
While campaigning for governor in 2006, Palin supported the bridge and she told Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere."
Even though Congress removed the earmark, the money still came to Alaska. In 2007, Palin announced that the plans to build the bridge would go nowhere.
Controversy surrounding it died down until Palin became presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain's running mate.
People in Ketchikan say they're feeling pain all over again.
"Yeah, it was a little bit disheartening that she turned around on that," Painter said. "I can't begrudge her for using that to claim her status as a reformer."
Not everyone is as forgiving.
"You know, we became a national punch line for it," Mark Tinder said. "A lot of sentiment here in town is that she stabbed people in the back -- I know they're upset about that. But I also understand where she's coming from, trying to get elected."
"I think there's an awful lot of politics around that bridge and I distrust things that seem to be for purely political reasons," said Sherry Hendrickson.
Media from all over the world have come to the city of 14,000, said longtime resident and activist Carol Cairnes, and most have played up on the fact that the bridge would connect Ketchikan with an island that's home to only about 50 people.
"There's only so few people that live here -- that's not really the point," Cairnes said. "The point is that because there are so few people living here, and there's not that many people to really pay attention, that the corruption aspect of what's gone on here is just phenomenal."
Cairnes says she lobbied Palin and her administration to ditch the bridge and instead invest in the ferry system.
"This is a maritime community. All of it. All of southeast Alaska is," she said. "And building roads down here and unnecessary bridges is a waste of our transportation money."
Palin may have claimed she rejected the bridge project, but the same can't be said for the road connecting the airport to the non-existent bridge.
"She could've stopped the construction on the road because the construction on the road didn't begin until May," Cairnes said.
The $26 million contract to construct the road, which is a little over three miles long, was signed by former Gov. Frank Murkowski just days before he left office in 2006. And Murkowski's wife owns 33 acres on Gravina Island, close to where the bridge would have been built.
The Palin administration says it would have taken an act of Congress to cancel the contract.
Congress removed the earmark for the bridge, but it did not do so for the road, said Palin's spokesperson Bill McAllister says.
"We're talking about the infamous earmark process here in which Congress directs exactly how money will be spent that it gives to the states," McAllister said. "It was a done deal from the moment she was sworn in."
Palin has directed the state Department of Transportation to continue working on options for access to the Ketchikan Airport.
As for the remaining bridge money, it's being used for other state road projects.
Contact Lori Tipton at ltipton@ktuu.com
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