Lynn Canal highway makes no sense

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has invested several millions in recent years planning and promoting a highway along the east side of the Lynn Canal from Juneau to a ferry terminal just south of Skagway. A decision will be reached shortly to issue permits for construction.

When I was asked by then Gov. Jay Hammond to convert the then Department of Highways and the Department of Public Works into a Department of Transportation, the principal goal of the effort was to ensure that each form of transportation in Alaska was designed to fit into an overall state system that would provide maximum benefits in safety, ease of transport, time savings, access and cost.

Since its formation DOTPF has developed a series of regional plans that attempt to define and address these goals. The utility of the Lynn Canal Highway in bettering the Alaska transportation system both for Southeast and statewide does not meet the goals for the following reasons:

Safety — It is difficult to conceive of a more dangerous route than most of the eastern shore of Lynn Canal along the proposed highway route from Juneau to the proposed terminal connecting the end of the road to Skagway and Haines. I inherited the proposed original route in 1974 and at first opportunity loaded my key staff members into an aircraft and took off to survey the route. My comment after the trip was “It looks like the world’s longest snow shed to me,” and the project was removed from the state highway plan.

Recently geotechnical contractors Golder Associates, in a report to DOTPF, determined there are 36 active avalanche paths and 112 other existing rock, land and debris slide areas within the northernmost 22 miles of the 50-mile route from Echo Cove to the proposed ferry terminal at the Katzehin River delta.

• Ease of transport — Since the present project involves transfer from highway to ferry it offers little change from the present system other than a shorter ferry ride and a longer car or truck ride. Total time enroute will not be substantially different, especially in winter.

• Time savings — Most Juneau residents go to Seattle or Anchorage when they leave Juneau. The road will do nothing for destinations in the Seattle or the rest of the United States in time savings. It will do little or nothing for the Haines connection to Anchorage. It will provide little or no savings over the present route to Whitehorse of other Canadian destinations.

• Access — There are no communities along the route to access above Echo Cove. Mine access has not been promoted as a principal goal. The road corridor offers little recreational opportunity that is not being achieved by boats from Juneau, Haines or Skagway.

• Cost — At $374 million this is one of the most expensive projects in Alaska history. Savings, as pointed out above, are minimal or nothing.

Why are we really building this project? It does not even connect Juneau by highway to the existing network anymore than the present ferry service to Haines and Skagway. The present system is far safer, especially in winter.

Walter B. Parker was commissioner of highways 1974-76 and state chairman Joint Federal/ State Land Use Planning Commission 1976-79.