Alaskan Photoblog

3/04/2006

Bridge to nowhere?

I read Thursday that Alaska's two infamous 'bridges to nowhere' were included in the federal budget despite the focused derision of the MSM and blogosphere. I have to say, I can't see any real reason for the Gravina Narrows bridge in Ketchikan.

However, I can understand building the Knik Arm bridge from Anchorage across the Knik Arm. Despite the braying and caterwauling, there is a real need for this bridge. Anchorage faces water to its south, west and north. We have the narrow and winding Seward highway around Turnagain Arm to the south. There is only the Glenn Highway to the northeast heading out of here in the other direction.

Across Knik Arm sits a vast amount of what the naysayers have mischaracterized as worthless swamp. Hardly. There is a vast amount of very good land on the other side of Knik Arm. Such a bridge would significantly shorten the trip north on the Parks Highway by bypassing the circuitous route around Knik Arm. It would relieve the pressure of development in Anchorage, which is reaching maximum density and open up vast amounts of new land. A bridge, would not only help the economy with its construction, but would greatly aid the state's economy with the development that would occur on the other side and let's face it, Alaska's economy has limited options.

Ofcourse that's not what you'll hear from the mainstream media (MSM) or many of the braying herd of punditocracy on the internet. Not when it's easy to take cheap and shallow shots with the implied nudge and wink that it's all a waste, but no real facts to back their case. So the main arguments are left to those who would like nothing more than to shut Alaska down to any development, or those who are transients here haveing been here only a short time and who plan on leaving in the not so distant future. They don't have to worry about the ramifications of running off their mouths because they'll be long gone in a few more years and finally the herd of chattering jackasses in the MSM and internet to whom this is mainly a political point scoring parlor excersize.

I can just imagine these naysayers gnashing their teeth over the bridge above. "Costs too much!" "The land to the north is useless!" "Why waste the money when we have so many more pressing needs!" The timidity of vision they possess is breathtaking. Had they been around when the Goldengate, George Washington or Brooklyn bridges were built, they too would have been 'bridges to nowhere.'
©Tim P(Click on photo to enlarge)