KETCHIKAN -- The possibility of federal funding for proposed bridges in Ketchikan remains "very strong," according to U.S. Rep. Don Young.

Young, R-Alaska, expects that Congress will approve highway legislation in mid-July and that it likely will contain money for the Ketchikan access project, linking the city to its island airport.

"I can't guarantee you anything, but it's still very strong," Young said while in Ketchikan for a House subcommittee hearing.

The proposed $315 million Gravina Access Project would link Revillagigedo and Gravina islands by building bridges to a third island between them.

Young included up to $125 million for the project in the $284 billion, six-year Transportation Equity Act-Legacy for Users bill approved by the House in March. In May, the Senate approved a $295 billion version of the transportation funding bill.

Young is chairman of the House-Senate conference committee that has been trying since early June to reconcile the two versions of the bill while also arriving at an overall level of spending that the Bush administration will accept.

On June 30, committee negotiators removed a major roadblock by agreeing to spend $286.5 billion and allocating specific amounts to various types of transportation funding. Now, Young said, the committee is reconciling specific items contained in the bills.

Young said he's bothered by criticism describing the Ketchikan project as an expensive "bridge to nowhere."

"These people keep saying it's nowhere, they're just smoking pot," Young said.

He also disagreed that the project is about connecting Ketchikan to its airport on Gravina Island.

"This is about opening the island," Young said. "There's state-owned and borough-owned land. It gives the opportunity for Ketchikan to grow."

He pointed to Sitka and Kodiak as examples where economic expansion occurred as a result of bridges. The Golden Gate and Chesapeake Bay bridges were originally criticized as going nowhere, he said.

A bridge linking Ketchikan with Gravina would provide growth a century and more into the future, he said.