What is the Bridge to Nowhere and will it Ever Happen?

The Bridge to Nowhere was supposed to be a bridge that connected the island of Ketchikan to the island of Gravina where the airport is located. The current means of transportation is to ferry across the half mile stretch of channel to reach the airport. The bridge would eliminate the ferry system that has been going on for years and allow cars to drive across instead. So is a 223 million dollar bridge really worth it in a town where the population is only 7,922 (2010 census)? Some say yes (mostly the people from Ketchikan), while almost everyone else says no. (ketchikanalaska.com).

According to Timothy Egan of the New York Times, this bridge would be the one of the biggest in the nation: “a mile long, with a top clearance of 200 feet from the water - 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet short of the Golden Gate Bridge.” (Egan p.1). Although seemingly expensive and unnecessary, the building of the Bridge to Nowhere would bring about 600 jobs (Egan p.2), which would be good for a lot of people, especially now with the unemployment rate being rather high. So while this bridge may seem like it would only benefit the people from Ketchikan, it may help others as well.

Being from Ketchikan, I’m stuck in the middle as to whether or not the bridge should be built. A part of me says yes because it would reduce a lot of the hassle that ferrying involves. You have to worry about finding a parking spot in the long term parking lot on the Ketchikan side, taking all of your luggage with you onto the ferry (which only comes every 30 minutes, 15 in the summer season), cram onto the rather small ferry with all of your luggage plus everyone else’s as well, ride for four to five minutes across, take all of your luggage up the outdoor ramp with only a small roof (did I mention Ketchikan is one of the rainiest places in the world? The average rainfall is 152 in per year. (ketchikanalaska.com)) to the ticket booth, pay the five dollars for the ferry ride, take the ramp or stairs to the street you have to cross where you finally make it into the airport itself (knowing all of this from personal experience). The other part of me says that the funding for the bridge could be used for a better cause instead of helping a small town’s inconveniences.

So will the Bridge to Nowhere ever happen? Although that answer seems to be no for now, the people of Ketchikan are still fighting hard to make the bridge happen. Seeing as the only other options of traveling into and out of Ketchikan are float plane and the Alaska Marine Highway System, which is the ferry system that only goes to a select number of places, traveling can be an even bigger aggravation without the airplane option which is the fastest and easiest way to travel.

Work Cited

“Ketchikan Alaska”. 2011. http://www.ketchikanalaska.com/index.html. Web. 18 September 2011.

Egan, Timothy. “Built With Steel, Perhaps, but Greased With Pork”. 10 April 2004. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/ecn1a/hwkey/Built%20With%20Steel.pdf. Web. 18 September 2011.