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In Democrat Tony Knowles' eight years as governor, he rankled local road supporters when he halted state funding for a road that would connect Juneau to Skagway.

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At a meeting in Juneau with the city's Alaska Committee last month, Knowles made his most explicit statement in favor of the road yet, saying "Let me be crystal clear. I will build the road," according to some who were there. The statement was confirmed by Knowles spokeswoman Patty Ginsberg.

"I was surprised, but appreciative," former Mayor Jamie Parsons said.

Former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, Knowles' Republican opponent, had earlier met with the committee, and promised her support for the road, committee members and her staff said.

The issue has changed since Knowles was governor. The proposal was scaled back for environmental reasons and now would run 51 miles north from Echo Cove to a new ferry terminal near the Katzehin River, which would shave travel time to the Alaska Highway.

Now, an almost permitted, partially funded project is ready to go.

"It's really a whole different ball game," Ginsburg said.

"When he was governor, Lynn Canal was the preferred alternative, construction was a decade away, there were concerns about delay by litigation, that it would sap federal highway dollars from other projects; there was a lot up in the air," she said.

There's no current proposal for extending the road farther than the ferry terminal, towards Haines and Skagway, but that may be where differences between the candidates lie.

"It's not part of the current project, but (Palin) generally supports the idea," said Curtis Smith, spokesman for the Palin campaign.

Smith's counterpart with the Knowles campaign, Ginsburg, said continuing the road north is not relevant to Knowles' support for the current project.

"Haines/Skagway is not an issue. That has already been determined to be not feasible," she said.

Despite Knowles' statements in favor of the Juneau Access Project, Knowles' position has skeptics on the left and the right.

No matter who gets elected governor, and no matter what they say during the campaigns, the new governor is going to have to make some significant decisions about the road, said Erika Bjorum of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Commission.

Her group calls it the "Juneau Road Extension," and Bjorum said she continues to hope a new governor will decline to go forward with it.

"Whoever the next governor is is going to have to take a look at this project with new eyes, and decide whether or not the expense of this project is worth going forward and putting off billions of dollars in backlogged maintenance DOT says they have," Bjorum said.

Republican leader Paulette Simpson said she appreciated Knowles' announced support, if it is sincere.

"I was pleased," she said. "I'm not sure I believe it, but it was probably an expedient thing to say."

SEACC's Bjorum thinks the same of both candidates.

"What the candidates are saying has a lot to do with the fact that there is a campaign going on," she said.

"If I were a voter watching, I wouldn't feel necessarily with this particular issue that either of the candidates has an immovable stance on it," she said.

Simpson said Juneau is increasingly pro-road, and Knowles support for the road is likely to help him politically.

Alaska Committee Chairman Win Gruening said the group, which works to retain the capital in Juneau, wasn't backing any specific candidate, but welcomed support whenever it got it.

"We're certainly happy that another candidate recognizes that road access is important to the whole state," he said.

Other road advocates want to know how firm Palin's support for a highway connection is when compared to other projects around the state.

Smith said that philosophically, Palin believes in roads as a form of economic development and for access to natural resources, and has shown that as Wasilla's mayor for eight years.

"I think some of the biggest road projects in Wasilla were done under her administration," he said.

While Palin has been criticized by the Knowles campaign for statements she made suggesting she'd favor projects in the Mat-Su Valley over those in other regions, Parsons, the former mayor, said there is statewide interest in having better road access to the capital.

"We'd go to fairs and it would come up unsolicited," he said.

"They say 'We want better access. We want to see our Legislature,'" he said.