Road can't be justified by money or convenience
The good people of Juneau have voted it down, but the road debate goes on and on and on.
To Jeff Kemp: The reason folks don't want a road north from Juneau is they're fantasizing about a "frontier life" (Oct. 30), alluding to me. Jeff knows I'm no frontiersman. I live in a modern house, with nice baseboard heat, full spectrum lighting and drive a car to work on a nice paved road - all by choice.
But maybe he doesn't know I grew up in a "frontier life." I lived in a house with fireplaces and wood stoves for heat, oil lamps for illumination and "slop jars" for night time bodily wastes, as honey buckets were called there. The outhouse was 100 frosty yards away, furnished with a Sears and Roebucks catalog, and regularly moved to a new location once a year.
I don't pine for that "frontier life" at all, thank you very much. But I am appalled today at the awful changes that quickly occurred in coastal Maine once the four-lane made it easily accessible. Most locals eventually moved because they could no longer afford the property taxes; the towns are now almost totally all gift and gee-gaw shops for the tourists, selling made in China "genuine local" articles - just like downtown Juneau - and the summer traffic is unbearable and deadly. Locals retreated to the Interior or to other places not yet ruined - like Alaska.
While it may be "nice" for someone to "be able to drive out once in a while," it will not be worth the costs. A road can be justified in neither dollars, nor convenience. People will still fly outside most of the time as it will be a four- to five-day trip of hard driving to get to Seattle by road and two days to Anchorage - you do the math. U.S. and Alaskan tax dollars would heavily subsidize Jeff's idyllic "drive out." We already have a great and unique transportation system in place, and Jeff is free to "drive out" anytime he wants right now, today.
There's an old adage that says, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." The message behind that is important.
Erik Lie-Nielsen
Juneau