Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein says project cost estimates by the state transportation department's Southeast Region are not consistent and favor prospective work outside his city.

Weinstein said the DOT's estimates are biased toward a Juneau access road project by using "inaccurate, incomplete and/or misleading information."

He and Transportation Commissioner Leo von Scheben have been exchanging their differences in letters since March.

That month Weinstein said the figures for the Juneau Access Road project are unrealistically low, underestimating the true costs for the 51-mile project that would stop at the Katzehin River Delta across the Lynn Canal from Haines.

In an April response, von Scheben defended the estimates, which are backed by the Federal Highway Administration and currently at $374 million.

"I believe this project is important to the department as a whole, not just to the Southeast Region," von Scheben wrote. "At this time I know of no fact that would lead me to doubt our staff or consultant estimates."

Not all the design work is complete, von Scheben acknowledged. That would produce a more precise cost estimate.

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Weinstein says there is precedent with the recent downtown Ketchikan road project to illustrate poor cost estimates and planning.

He pointed to the one-mile project, first believed to cost $6 million. Costs reached $26 million because the department did not heed warnings from local officials about a slide area that would need special attention, Weinstein said.

Von Scheben, however, said that case is not comparable to the Juneau Access Project because Ketchikan's Third Avenue Bypass work was in an urban area.

Weinstein says he'd still like an analysis on the effect the prospective Juneau road project potentially has on other projects.

He's also calling for a state plan to begin work on replacing several Alaska Marine Highway System vessels.

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