Anchorage Daily News

If ever there was a time to clear out traffic on the Glenn Highway, it's now.

Gas prices just under $4 have pushed the cost of a five-day, 50-mile each way commute to about $115 for a Chevy pickup. Interested yet, drivers? Last summer that driver might have paid only $85 a week, and considered that painfully high.

Anchorage and Mat-Su local governments should seize the chance to put together a mass transit plan for the commuters --- whether that's commuter rail, a better funded bus system or a combination of things. And they should get it going in time to request funding during the special legislative session. Lawmakers will be taking up proposals to use surplus state money to help Alaskans cope with rising energy costs. This would fit right in.

There are stirrings of interest at both ends, in the Valley and Anchorage. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich says he's been studying the idea for a couple of weeks and intends to pursue it.

The Mat-Su Borough is also looking at ways to help out commuters. Borough Manager John Duffy said the borough is seeking a grant to buy 10 new commuter vans, for example.

The Alaska Railroad has already done a lot of work on commuter rail. The railroad has straightened tracks in anticipation of a commuter line, and is building a self-propelled car that could be used for commuters in winters (it has another mission during summers). The car is expected to be ready for a trial this coming winter.

In 2002, the railroad produced a detailed blueprint that answers a lot of questions about how a Southcentral commuter rail network might work.

At that time, costs for startup and first-year operation of a basic commuter rail were estimated at $31.5 million, but $28 million of that was for capital expenses. Compare that, say, to a $600 million bridge across Knik Arm, with continuing maintenance and toll operating expenses as well.

The big question, though, is who's going to coordinate the buses, ferries and railroad trips that make up the commuter network. The railroad study said we need a new organization like a regional transit authority, which crosses the jurisdictional boundaries.

The commuter service will also need subsidies to operate. The study estimated a first-year subsidy of $2 million to $3 million would be needed.

While fares don't pay the full costs up front, public transit will save money on road maintenance, expansion of the Glenn Highway, the need for parking facilities in Anchorage and in other ways.

The timing might not have been right when the railroad study was completed five years ago. But the need and demand for commuter service has only grown since then, as more commuters moved to the Valley and gas spiked to $4 a gallon.

The railroad study should be updated. And the two local governments should climb aboard by forming a regional transportation authority.

BOTTOM LINE: Commuter rail and other forms of mass transit between Anchorage and the Valley make more sense every day.

We remembered

We said prayers and lit individual candles for the dead, 32 of them.

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Fairbanks has been home to many memorial services in more than 100 years on the banks of the Chena, but this event was unusual.

More than 50 people gathered to remember the Fairbanksans murdered since 1972, men and women whose killers have never been apprehended. Apparently it is easier to get away with murder than most of us realize.

I went out of respect for the family of one of the victims, Sophie Sergie, brutally murdered in a UAF dorm in 1993. I met the family while I was editorial page editor.

Many skilled police officers have worked on the case yet there has been no arrest.

The dead were a mixture of both genders, of varying age, ethnicity and race. There was no stereotypical victim -- nor was there a stereotypical mourner.

Shirley Lee, an organizer of the event, read the names of the victims from the pulpit. All were strangers to me except one -- a young man killed in 1975. He and I had been friendly at Lathrop High School in the early '60s. I heard he had been murdered, but I didn't quite believe it until Shirley spoke his name.

As the service concluded and people filed into the parish hall, I noticed there were extra candles. I lit one and added it to the candles burning at the foot of the altar.

I lit the candle in memory of a woman murdered long ago.

Alice Astor, also known as Mrs. W.C. Harp, was slain in April 1915.

Alice worked on the old Fairbanks line downtown behind the courthouse. She was a prostitute, killed in her cabin. The milkman discovered her body during a routine delivery. The murderer, who used a knife, had been savage: Alice's head was almost severed from her body.

Alice was married. Her husband, William Harp, was out of town when she died. It's unclear what he knew about her life as a prostitute. But he apparently loved her enough that he sent her body to his home state of Arkansas for burial -- a time-consuming and costly venture in 1912.

No motive was established; no one was arrested.

The novelist Willa Cather said even the worst people usually get worse than they deserve from life. I thought about this when a friend told me one of the 32 whose memories we honored had been a drug dealer. Then I thought: Even in death a drug dealer deserves justice. And everyone deserves to be remembered, including Alice Astor.

-- Michael Carey

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