Bridge gets a double whammy

MAT-SU — It’s been a bad couple of weeks for the Knik Arm crossing project.

First, the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities began the process of taking away all the money it planned to spend on it this year, then the department’s commissioner was fired in part for defending the project.

The funding change was announced Jan. 9 in the form of a proposed amendment to the state’s Surface Transportation Improvement Project that zeroes out all of the money for the project and for the Juneau Access Road project in the current federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

The plan had called for allocating $133 million to build Anchorage access routes to the bridge and $420 million to build the actual bridge in that time period. That money was mostly federal funding but contained some borrowed money.

The money available to be reallocated amounted to $50 million from the Knik Arm bridge project and $104 million from the Juneau project.

The amendment process is a lengthy one but amendments to the STIP are not uncommon. This change would be the 13th change to the plan.

“Every time a project slips we need to make an amendment to that and move other projects around where we can fit them into this transportation funding puzzle,” said DOT&PF spokesman Jeremy Woodrow said.

The amendment spreads the funding removed from the two zeroed out projects to more than 20 smaller projects in Whittier, Kenai, Prince of Wales, Anchorage and Mat-Su.

The Mat-Su projects include some already ongoing — $25 million would go to the ongoing effort to widen the Parks Highway, replacing other funding already allocated there — and projects not yet begun — $3.6 million would go to move the Glenn Highway away from an eroding bluff at Mile 49. There’s also $20.1 million that would reconstruct the Glenn from the Parks Highway to Old Glenn Highway and $2.7 million to resurface Mile 53 to 56 of that highway and replace the Moose Creek Bridge. There’s also $9 million to replace the Glenn’s bridge over the Chickaloon River.

Of interest to Mat-Su, though not within the borough’s borders is a $9.3 million allotment to resurface the Glenn from Hiland Road to Eklutna.

Lois Epstein, an engineer with the Wilderness Society, seemed pretty pleased at the move in an e-mail sent to media outlets shortly afterward.

“Some of the projects would be completed and some still need more money. Even if those projects are fully funded, there’s still close to $1 billion more (90 percent federal) that could be spent on other roads, bridges, transit, bike/pedestrian projects,” Epstein wrote.

Pat Kemp, who until Wednesday had been commissioner of the Department of Transportation, warned in a report that Gov. Bill Walker solicited on the two projects that stopping them in their tracks would “trigger a financial penalty.”

He said that both projects, “represent a cost-effective opportunity to significantly improve transportation in terms of capacity, travel time and user costs.”

Later in his report he explains that there are clauses in government grants that say that if the projects are halted the government would demand that money back. Total money spent so far amounts to $72.9 million for the Knik Arm bridge and $25.7 million for the Juneau Access Road.

“Both (the Knik Arm crossing) and (the Juneau Access Road) have advanced to a point where there is no legal possibility of simply stopping or even suspending one or both projects without penalty,” Kemp wrote.

The report was dated Jan. 5. Kemp was fired Jan. 12. A Walker spokesman said the move came as a result of Kemp’s defense for the road projects, which showed he didn’t share Walker’s views. Walker has ordered a halt to spending on a list of so-called megaprojects. Both roads are on the list. The only other Mat-Su project included is the Susitna-Watana hydroelectric dam.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.