Knik bridge costly to state

EARMARKED: Money can't be applied to other "core" highway projects.

By ROSEMARY SHINOHARA
Anchorage Daily News

Published: September 9, 2005
Last Modified: September 9, 2005 at 04:56 AM

Paying for the Knik Arm bridge and other specially "earmarked" projects will reduce other federal highway money for Alaska by at least $50 million next year, a senior state transportation official said Thursday.

The state hasn't yet calculated how much Anchorage's share of general transportation funding will be reduced, said Jeff Ottesen, statewide transportation planner.

"It's down," he said. "It's real ugly down."

He spoke at City Hall to the five-member AMATS committee, a group of state and local officials that decides how to spend some of the federal transportation money in Anchorage.

Alaska's congressional delegation identified $1 billion worth of specific projects, called earmarks, in federal transportation legislation covering the upcoming five years. The two biggest are $229 million toward a proposed bridge across Knik Arm between Mat-Su and Anchorage, and more than $220 million for a bridge connecting Ketchikan to Gravina Island.

The $1 billion in earmarks equals half of the $2 billion total authorized for the state. Nearly $600 million of the earmark funds is basically deducted from Alaska's general transportation program. The rest, $440 million, caused an increase in funding for Alaska above the regular federal formulas.

So more transportation money than ever before is coming into Alaska, but so much of it is tied up in earmarked projects that ordinary road and highway jobs -- what Ottesen called the core program -- will get less.

The legislation calls for the Knik Arm bridge to be named Don Young's Way.

"Don Young's Way is the wrong priority for Alaska," Steve Cleary, director of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, said after the AMATS meeting. "The numbers speak for themselves. The Knik Bridge is taking money away from local transportation projects."

But Anchorage Assemblyman Chris Birch, a member of the AMATS committee, said the Knik Arm bridge will benefit both Anchorage and Mat-Su.

"The bottom line is this is a good bill for Alaska despite the local impacts," he said.

In addition to the earmark deduction, the federal government has taken back $75 million in federal transportation funds that the state had expected for the last two months of fiscal 2005, Ottesen said. That's due mainly to lower spending levels for core programs under the new federal law, he said.

He just received word about that this week, and again, doesn't yet know what it will mean.

Southcentral Alaska, including Anchorage, has about $50 million worth of projects in line for appropriations this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, he said. Those are projects that hadn't yet gotten the money, which has now disappeared.

In limbo, for example, is $3.4 million to repair pavement on 36th Avenue, $2.9 million for Ship Creek trail construction and $6 million to buy property to widen lanes into town on the Glenn Highway.

Ottesen said he will likely recommend that projects ready to go this year get the money as an advance on Alaska's 2006 funding, which would then leave less for next year.

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a member of the AMATS committee, noted that the state has a budget surplus and might make up for some of the loss in core federal transportation money.

Ottesen said he's already planning to talk to state budget officials with that idea in mind.