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Last Updated: Sep 22, 2008 - 5:46:05 AM |
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's transportation department has completed a $25
million gravel road leading to the site of a bridge that Palin, as John
McCain's vice presidential candidate, now boasts that she stopped, so
as to save taxpayers money. The road was built with federal tax dollars.
Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein said the 3.2-mile road will be useful for
road races, hunters and possibly future development. But with no bridge
to serve it, that's probably about it.
"I think it will be good for recreational things like a 5K and a 10K,"
Weinstein said. "And instead of people walking through brush, it may be
used for hunting in the area."
Palin repeatedly tells campaign crowds she said "thanks but no thanks"
to Washington when it came up with $400 million for a bridge linking
Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. In fact, she
turned against the bridge only after it became a national symbol of
wasteful spending and Washington had backed off financing the project.
Roger Wetherell, speaking for the state Transportation Department, said
the road opened several days ago might someday get people to and from
Gravina Island after all, if cheaper designs for a bridge become a
reality. Meantime, it opens access to land development, he said.
McCain opposes the pet projects that lawmakers in Washington wring out
of the federal budget for their constituents in the form of special
spending, or earmarks. He's railed for years against the bridge, doing
more than anyone to make the nickname Bridge to Nowhere stick. And as
his running mate, Palin talks about how she killed the bridge project
and "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by
Congress."
She supported the bridge during her campaign for governor in 2006, then
pulled back state money for it a year later, after Washington had
pulled the plug.
Alaska received about half the bridge money anyway, on condition it be
used for other things. Palin's predecessor and the Legislature
redirected all but $60 million in 2006 to other projects, and Palin has
left the remainder untouched, to be used eventually to improve access
to the island, her spokeswoman has said.
The airport is separated from its users by a quarter-mile-wide channel
of water, forcing travelers to catch either a ferry or a water taxi for
a 15-minute ride. Ketchikan, seven blocks wide and eight miles long, is
Alaska's entry port for northbound cruise ships that bring more than 1
million visitors yearly.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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