KABATA: going, going, still not gone

We are not opponents of the Knik Arm bridge project.

We feel a need to state that at the outset mostly because there are a few of our neighbors who don’t believe us.

And while we sympathize with their disbelief — to say you support a project and spill as much ink as we have criticizing it sometimes rings with the disingenuousness of a seasoned politician — we repeat: we support the idea of bridging the Knik Arm.

We see benefits — and risks — to the Mat-Su Borough to development in the Point MacKenzie and Big Lake areas. Homebuilding spurs growth and spreads the property tax burden across more residents. A faster route between Anchorage and Fairbanks is also desirable for moving freight and supplies north, and for moving resources south to tidewater.

We are in favor of moving forward with a bridge project designed to fit with our existing road system and help traffic and freight move more efficiently from tidewater to the Interior and Prudhoe Bay at the end of the Dalton Highway. And we favor financing schemes that don’t transfer all the financial benefits to the private sector while leaving the public sector to shoulder the full financial risk.

In short, we wholly support the Legislature’s move to roll the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority into the state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. That move put an end to the so-called Public Private Partnership that seemed to leave the financial risks with the public while sending the profits to private investors.

Our intent was always to advocate for a bridge plan that made sense financially and provided substantive new transportation links in the Mat-Su Borough. That the quasi-governmental KABATA would no longer exist was incidental for us.

But we have been curious why the KABATA board of directors has continued to meet regularly these past few months after the Legislature seemingly eliminated it last session.

“Why does a board of directors exist if the authority doesn’t have anything to do?” we asked.

In a story in today’s paper we share the answer: the board is basically dormant, waiting the day when the bridge is built and it will be needed to set up an authority to levy tolls on the span.

To us, that this board still exists is akin to a vestigial appendage. Do we really need to maintain a board of directors — for a quasi-governmental group that no longer exists — to plan for tolls that are years, if not decades, away?

Next session, we hope to see the Legislature finish the job it started this year and kill off this remaining appendage.

Since the state DOT is in charge of the project and responsible for getting it funded, it makes sense that they also would reestablish toll-collection infrastructure when the time comes that it is needed.