Anchorage Daily News

Does Southcentral Alaska need a half-billion-dollar bridge to connect Anchorage with the Mat-Su?

That's the long-disputed question the Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday voted to ask the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions policy committee to reconsider.

A toned-down version of a resolution proposed by Assembly members Patrick Flynn and Sheila Selkregg passed unanimously after considerable discussion during which opponents stripped it of language that would have directly asked AMATS to begin removing the bridge from its long-term plans.

Instead, assembly members seemed to agree that posing to the committee -- and public -- the question of nixing the bridge would suffice.

"It's important to put on the records that we have some apprehensions," Selkregg said. "Potentially, this could erode our own tax base and erode the value of our homes."

The resolution as initially worded would have withdrawn the city's support for the project, asked AMATS to begin removing it from long-term highway plans and requested the unused federal money be redirected to other transportation projects.

Dissenters, including Assemblyman Chris Birch, took exception to the seeming lack of a public process before a potential decision to condemn the project. Also of concern was what Birch said appeared to be a general lack of understanding about the implications of making such a declaration in haste.

"I think there are a lot of inaccuracies in the resolution and we just need to be sure there is a public process," Birch said. "Without public process, I cannot support it."

Lingering questions included how the roughly $63 million in unspent federal bridge money would be spent and whether the state could get stuck holding the bag for about $41 million already spent if the project is killed now.

The project's price tag as estimated by the Knik Arm Bridge Toll Authority is between $400 million and $600 million, but that hasn't been adjusted in years. An updated cost analysis requested by the state is expected Dec. 5.

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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