Anchorage Long Range Transportation Plan May Not Include the Knik Arm Bridge;

Key Committee Voted Today for Public Comment on Draft Amendment Removing the Bridge

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Lois Epstein, 907.929.9372

Anchorage, AK – The Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS) Policy Committee today voted 3-2 to allow the public to comment on a draft document removing the Knik Arm Bridge from the municipality's Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). The committee's municipal representatives voted to release the draft document while the state's representatives did not. Should the AMATS Policy Committee ultimately vote to approve the amendment, the bridge no longer would be eligible for federal funds.

Since the AMATS Policy Committee voted to include the amendment adding the bridge to the LRTP in April 2007, a number of important circumstances have changed. Worldwide liquidity for investing in costly infrastructure projects largely has evaporated, an independent cost estimate of the bridge stated that the $686 million project will require equitable risk sharing between private investors and state or local government, and the Cook Inlet beluga whale has been listed as an endangered species. The bridge design contained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement is not approvable by the National Marine Fisheries Service because of its likely impacts on the beluga whale and salmon, so an even costlier bridge design is likely.

"Despite the current lack of investor funding for similar projects and the problems with the proposed bridge's design, the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority and some at Alaska Department of Transportation continue to claim that this project will not cost Anchorage or the state any money," said Lois Epstein, an engineer and Director of the non-profit transportation watchdog organization Alaska Transportation Priorities Project. "Do Anchorage and the state want to jeopardize funding for a substantial number of transportation projects by relying on KABATA's inflated and unverifiable projections of toll revenue?"

According to KABATA's consultants, existing commuters from the Mat-Su Borough's Wasilla and Palmer population centers would travel farther and longer to reach Anchorage if they choose to take the bridge, and would pay an expected $5 toll each way. There currently is only negligible development at Point MacKenzie in the Mat-Su Borough – the proposed bridge's terminus – so only a small number of vehicles are likely to use the bridge during its early years of operation and there's no guarantee of future users.

KABATA expects to spend nearly $5 million in federal and state transportation dollars this year and has spent over $44 million to date (see www.knikbridgefacts.org for a counter showing KABATA's expenditures in real time). There is approximately $60 million in federal and state funds allocated to the proposed bridge which KABATA has the authority to utilize.