Should we build a bridge across Knik Arm?

The Anchorage Assembly and the city's transportation planning organization, the Anchorage Metropolitan Transportation Solutions (AMATS) Policy Committee will soon vote on whether the bridge should become a long-term project in Anchorage's Long Range Transportation Plan, ensuring that construction begins no earlier than 2018. Please contact your Assembly Member, and Mayor Sullivan (343-7100 or SullivanD@ci.anchorage.ak.us) and/or Governor Parnell (465-3500 or sean.parnell@alaska.gov); the mayor sits on the AMATS Policy Committee, the Governor has two representatives, and there are two Assembly members on the five-member committee. Please let these individuals know you oppose the bridge or think its construction should be moved to 2018 or later and why. Below are some points you might want to make.

• 1) High financial risk for Anchorage or the state. An Alaska DOT-funded independent cost estimate completed in January 2009 states that "without an equitable risk sharing agreement, the Project will not be economically feasible if proposals are received wherein all risks are passed on to the contractor." In other words, the bridge only will go forward if the state or Anchorage share the financial risks of inadequate toll revenue. Calculations show this deficit could be as much as Anchorage spends on transportation during the first three years of the project, and no positive revenue flow from tolls over the first 19 years.


• 2) Private investors likely will not materialize, and the state has better uses for its transportation money. There is insufficient evidence that private investors will fund this toll bridge, wholly or in part, given the worldwide credit downturn. If not, it will be up to the state or Anchorage to fund the bridge and its access roads - which could cost $1.5 billion or more according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) - at the expense of local transportation priorities. With limited funds available (Anchorage spends approximately $22 mill./year on transportation, most of it federal dollars which are declining dramatically), and only approximately $60 million available for the bridge now, Anchorage should not fund the bridge instead of Lake Otis Parkway improvements or fixing all the city's potholes and ruts or improving public transportation, as examples.


• 3) Bridge costs are likely to rise significantly to protect endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales. Federal resource agencies will not allow the current bridge design to proceed because of the adverse impacts it will have on salmon and the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale. The agencies prefer a 14,000' bridge over the current 8,200' design (the remaining distance across Knik Arm would be filled-in causeways). The longer bridge increases bridge-building but not access road costs by approximately 50% according to the federal Environmental Impact Statement. KABATA, however, does not support a design that meets the agencies' requirements, nor has KABATA determined how to pay for a longer bridge.


• 4) KABATA greatly overestimated bridge traffic and toll revenue. According to KABATA's contractor, 3 years after the bridge opens there will be more traffic on it than the traffic currently on the Glenn Highway from the Mat-Su Borough, i.e., approximately 13,000 vehicles each way daily. This same contractor estimated that over 50% of the traffic on the bridge will be from users living near Pt. MacKenzie, including during the first year the bridge operates. Additionally, commuters from Wasilla and areas east of it in the Mat-Su Borough will find that it will take longer and be a farther drive to travel to Anchorage via the bridge instead of the Glenn Highway, plus bridge users will pay a toll. Only those living in the currently scarcely populated areas west of Wasilla and near the bridge would benefit from it.

The Bottom Line: When the bridge was proposed, it was generally thought that federal funding or toll revenues would pay for it. Since that's not the case with declining federal funding and the unlikelihood of private investment partners at this time, the state or Anchorage will need to pay for it, thus sacrificing other needed transportation projects including fixing existing infrastructure and improving public transportation. Additionally, KABATA's contractors greatly overestimated the number of bridge users since the facts show that the bridge will do little or nothing to help the majority of Mat-Su Borough residents and workers.