Anchorage Daily News

Tonight the Anchorage Assembly is likely to vote on a resolution to strike the Knik Arm Crossing from the city's long-range transportation plan.

Members should vote yes. The Knik Arm Crossing, estimated to cost $700 million to $1 billion, would connect Anchorage's already congested downtown to a sparsely populated expanse of bogs and wetlands in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The bridge should no longer be a priority for Anchorage and Mat-Su, given increased fuel and construction costs, the controversy over its route and the opportunity costs of spending so much precious federal highway money on one dubious project.

Assembly members Patrick Flynn and Sheila Selkregg are the resolution's sponsors. Both serve on the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS) policy committee. That's the five-member group that decides how to spend the Anchorage area's federal transportation money.

Flynn said he's not opposed to a crossing forever. But he's against this bridge at this time. His reasons are sound.

• The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority has chosen a route many in Anchorage, including Mayor Mark Begich, oppose, linking the bridge to the A-C couplet in downtown Anchorage.

• Real construction costs for the crossing are uncertain. The state sought proposals for an independent review of costs, but that's been delayed.

• Work on the bridge already has soaked up more than $40 million in federal money. That's money that would have been better spent on commuter bus/van/rail service between Anchorage and Mat-Su, more bus routes in Anchorage, Glenn Highway upkeep and repairs or even planning for the Glenn-to-Seward highway connection in Anchorage.

End pursuit of the crossing for now, and Southcentral Alaska still stands to gain between $50 million and $60 million for other, more pressing needs.

The Assembly resolution would be just the first step in calling a halt to the project. Federally required public hearings would add another three to six months before the crossing could officially disappear from Anchorage's list.

Local and state officials need to make sure we can scratch the bridge without having to repay the $40 million-plus in federal money. Cost and controversy are generally reason enough for the feds to forgo repayment. The Knik Arm Crossing provides both in abundance.

Circumstances have changed since the bridge authority was formed in 2003. Fuel, materials and construction costs have leaped. Alaska's wide-open pipeline to federal money has contracted as concern about increased deficits grows. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young still have power, but minority status and the "bridges to nowhere" moniker have turned off the federal tap for the Knik project.

What was at best a visionary project in a time of plenty now looks like a force-fed misallocation of scarce resources for the wrong bridge at the wrong time. Let's cut our losses -- and invest what's left in something better.

BOTTOM LINE: Anchorage has much more urgent transportation priorities than the Knik Arm Crossing.

Palin's view

Governor has been a stalwart supporter of Knik bridge

Gov. Sarah Palin campaigned for governor in 2006 as a supporter of two controversial bridge proposals, in Ketchikan and across Knik Arm, both pursued with massive federal appropriations.

On the team now with anti-earmark presidential candidate John McCain, Palin is making hay with her later decision to reject the Ketchikan bridge.

But she still has not pulled support for the Knik Arm Crossing, like the Ketchikan bridge a stunningly expensive project that serves a largely empty area.

The Knik Arm Crossing, meant to connect Palin's home territory in the Susitna Valley with Anchorage, is now estimated to cost $700 million to $1 billion.

In 2005, Congress designated $200 million for the Knik Arm Crossing. Amid criticism of the earmark, Congress later removed the requirement that the money be spent on the Knik bridge but still gave Alaska the money.

While she hasn't come out against building it, Palin did raise a note of caution in June, calling for a "complete review" of the latest plans for paying for the bridge. "We need to see if things have changed in the last couple years," she said.

One thing that's changed: She's now cast as a federal spending reformer. The Knik Arm Crossing doesn't fit the new image.

BOTTOM LINE: No to Ketchikan bridge but still yes to Knik Crossing? Palin's stand is not consistent.

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