Taxpayers Still Paying For "Bridge to Nowhere"

[and-justice-for-all]

Monday 11 April 2011
by: Sean Cockerham, Anchorage Daily News

Juneau - Legislators have signed off on another $1.4 million in federal money to pay planners of the controversial Knik Arm bridge and are talking about ponying up state dollars for the project next year.

The bridge would connect Anchorage to mostly undeveloped Mat-Su land near Point MacKenzie. Supporters estimate a cost of about $700 million, and critics nationally ridiculed it as a "bridge to nowhere" when Congress provided initial money to help.

Bills cleared the transportation committees in the state House and Senate this year to give $150 million in state money for the bridge and declare financial obligations made by the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority "obligations of the state."

Those bills will remain alive when the Legislature returns to work in January and lawmakers are interested. "I'm a big supporter of the Knik Arm bridge," said Chugiak Rep. Bill Stoltze, in charge of construction funding in the House.

Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman said it's not ready this year but he intends to put forward a transportation funding package next year and is talking to state officials about what needs to be built and when...

More: http://truthout.org/taxpayers-still-paying-bridge-nowhere/1302418800