The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, United States, with Gravina Island, an island that contains the Ketchikan International Airport as well as 50 residents. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation, particularly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, were the bridge's biggest advocates in Congress, and helped push for federal funding. The project encountered fierce opposition outside Alaska as a symbol of pork barrel spending and is labeled as one of the more prominent "bridges to nowhere". As a result, Congress removed the federal earmark for the bridge in 2005. Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" was continued as of March 2, 2011, in the passing of H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 by the House of Representatives, and finally cancelled in 2015.
Background
According to the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, the project's goal was to "provide better service to the airport and allow for development of large tracts of land on the island".
A ferry runs to the island every 30 minutes, and every 15 minutes during the May–September peak tourist season. It charges $6 per adult, with free same-day return, and $7 per automobile also with same day return as of April 2021.
According to USA Today, the bridge was to have been nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge, which is long, and "higher than the Brooklyn Bridge". The bridge would cross the Tongass Narrows, part of Alaska's Inside Passage, so the bridge was designed to be tall enough to accommodate ship traffic, including the Alaska Marine Highway and the cruise ships that frequent Alaskan waters during the summer.
Ketchikan's airport is the second largest in Southeast Alaska, after Juneau International Airport, and handled over 200,000 passengers a year or 550 per day, while the ferry shuttled 350,000 people in the same time period ().
A number of alternative bridge routes were considered. The decision in September 2004 was actually for two bridges, connecting Pennock Island in the middle, and is known as Alternative F1. The west span of the bridge was designed to have a vertical clearance of , and the east span of the bridge was to have a vertical clearance of .
History
The controversy began with the 2006 National Appropriations Bill, an omnibus spending bill covering transportation, housing, and urban development for the following year. On October 20, 2005, H.R. 3058 [109th]'s first version passed the U.S. Senate with 93 votes for, 1 against.
On October 21, 2005, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment to remove funds for the Gravina Island and Knik Arm bridges, and divert the funds to rebuild a bridge over Lake Pontchartrain that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska became the object of strong media criticism when he strongly opposed diverting the Gravina and Knik Arm Bridge funds to help in the disaster aid. In his speech on the Senate floor, Stevens threatened to quit Congress if the funds were removed from his state. On November 16, 2005, Congress stripped the specific earmark allocation of federal funds for the two bridges in the final edition of the omnibus spending bill, without changing the amount of money allocated for use by Alaska. The Coburn Amendment was defeated with a heavy bipartisan majority, with 15 senators in favor of the amendment and 82 senators in opposition.
In September 2006, during her campaign for Governor, Sarah Palin visited Ketchikan to express her support for the Gravina Island Bridge project. At a public forum, Palin held up a pro-bridge T-shirt designed by a Ketchikan artist, Mary Ida Henrikson. The legend on the shirt was "Nowhere Alaska 99901", referencing the buzzword of "Bridge to Nowhere" and the primary ZIP code of Ketchikan. In her public comments, referring to her own residence in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, she said: "OK, you’ve got Valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere. I think we’re going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project" in response to an insult expressed by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens.