Gordon Keith, regional director for the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said his office will be putting the job of estimating the cost of the controversial project out for bids in coming weeks. He said the task of coming up with a price could cost up to $200,000 and take up to 3½ months.
"The issue keeps swirling around, so we thought it best to go ahead and do an independent estimate," he said. The cost to get the estimate is going to be high "if you want to do it correctly," he said.
The cost of a span reaching across Knik Arm from Anchorage to Point MacKenzie has ranged over the years from $450 million to $1 billion, depending on what kind of bridge is envisioned and what starting date is plugged into the formula.
The addition of transportation links on each end of the span -- such as a connection on the Anchorage side to the Ingra-Gambell couplet -- could increase the price by hundreds of millions.
The agency charged with coming up with a bridge plan -- the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority -- recently estimated the span would cost $667 million if construction begins next year. The authority, which made the estimate in response to a request from the governor's office, said that figure could increase to $824 million by 2015.
Keith said the DOT's plan to get a new report on costs did not mean the authority's numbers are untrustworthy.
"I don't read that into it," he said. "We just think it's a prudent course of action for the Department of Transportation to do."
He said construction costs are volatile, and the department sometimes seeks independent cost estimates for its own projects. DOT set out to get the independent estimate on the Knik Arm project after the governor's office and the Federal Highway Administration also indicated they wanted a fix on a price.
Randy Ruaro, a special assistant to Gov. Sarah Palin, said the administration, even in the face of the recent lengthy report from the bridge authority, was having trouble getting an accurate picture of everything that is involved in the project, of the timing of the phases, and of the costs. He said the independent estimate is expected to answer those questions.
Mary Ann Pease, spokeswoman for the authority, said she welcomes the effort to get updated costs.
"Estimates change, and maybe there's going to be some more detailed specifics available," she said.
Lois Epstein, director of Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, which has resisted the bridge project, also said the independent cost estimate would be a good thing.
"What we have now is people moving toward a decision based on old numbers and numbers that there's a lot of skepticism about," she said.
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