Cutting the cost of state government is a vital component of Gov. Bill Walker’s sustainable budget proposal. Every little bit helps. That’s why he’s posted four short videos online under the heading “Cutting Costs” that describe annual savings of a quarter million dollars. But according to Charles Wohlforth of the Alaska Dispatch News, Walker is considering blowing all that savings and twenty times more by approving construction of the Juneau Access road.
“Walker confirmed that he is weighing approval to build the Juneau road,” Wohlforth wrote after speaking with the governor last weekend. “He sounded like he was leaning in favor.”
Wohlforth called it a “mysterious virus” that make governors dream big. And building the road is big — it’ll cost $574 million.
But that’s not where the savings would be blown because most of it is federal highway trust fund money dedicated to transportation projects. The added expense will come from the annual operating cost of the road which, according to the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement published in 2014, is $5 million more than the state would spend maintaining the current ferry routes between Juneau, Haines and Skagway.
And the feds aren’t sending us money to cover those increased expenses.
Let’s face it, the only reason why this project has ever been considered possible is because it’s American taxpayer money we’d be spending. If it was all state funds it wouldn’t have even made it to the design stage.
I recognize the fact that the road will move more people and vehicles between these three cities than the ferries. It’ll also create some new economic opportunities. But the project has a negative cost to benefit ratio of 0.28. That means the state would get 28 cents worth of value for every dollar it spends.
As economist Gregg Erickson pointed out, the Alaska Department of Transportation kept the source report for that figure out of the public’s reach for months. Then “they buried it behind 1,421 pages of other material” in the DSEIS. “Buried” is the right word, too. If the conclusion had been that the state would gain $1 for every 28 cents spent instead of the other way around, it would have been highlighted in the executive summary, not hidden where only an economist could find it.
To make matters worse, that upside-down figure doesn’t include millions of dollars the state will need to spend next to widen the road between Sunshine Cove and Echo Cove. Or widening the bridges over the Herbert and Eagle rivers. These upgrades might be necessary even if the road isn’t built. But as long as the existing highway serves just local, low-volume traffic, that work can be deferred indefinitely.
The cost-benefit ratio will get bumped another notch lower if AKDOT’s traffic estimate proves to be as seriously flawed as Smart Mobility, Inc. claims. It would mean less users, and the loss of that revenue translates to increasing the annual operating expenses above and beyond the $5 million I already mentioned.
Smart Mobility specializes in estimating travel demand. They believe AKDOT used an invalid model in which “the errors in the forecast process compound in each step and the final result is highly inflated.”
I’ve argued that DOT failed to follow best practices based on the Federal Highway Administration’s “Interim Guidance on the Application of Travel and Land Use Forecasting in NEPA.” One its purposes is to “assist agencies in creating better and more legally defensible forecasting applications.”
That’s right. The guide was intended to help state transportation agencies avoid costly litigation that’s been driven in part by inflated traffic estimates. That FHWA felt the guide was needed, which suggests the government has lost a lot of cases like this. But DOT ignored it.
The list of potential litigant complaints about this project is long. Among them is the lack of public transportation between Juneau and the Katzehin ferry terminal. And some avalanche experts believe the state’s mitigation plan for the 43 chutes along the corridor is woefully inadequate.
Failure to address individual concerns like these may not result in legal action. But like the cruise industry challenge to Juneau’s head tax, every grievance can be lumped into one complicated lawsuit. And if that happens, it won’t do any good to speculate about the plaintiff’s motives or a judge’s eventual ruling.
Walker can avoid this long and expensive path. All he has to do is choose the No Action Alternative. That’s consistent with his economic message that Alaska’s enemy is the lack of a sustainable budget plan. And building an expensive road that increases the cost of operating government isn’t.
• Rich Moniak is a retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
