Citizens opposing further state or local funds for the Knik Arm Bridge have a PowerPoint presentation arguing that “Train Wreck” is the best description of what will occur when an estimated $1.1 Billion in Bridge toll shortfall between 2016-2035 collides with the $2.5 Billion needed in Anchorage to cover road, public transportation, and bike, pedestrian, and trail improvements now outlined in the draft 2035 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP). Click here (updated on 1/25/2012) for the Knik Arm Bridge and MTP PowerPoint.
The MTP will be taken up by the Anchorage Planning and Zoning Commission and then the Anchorage Assembly in early 2012.
For a list of current projects included in the draft MTP click here.
The MTP “assumes” that the Alaska legislature will approve $150 Million in state General Funds for the Bridge, provide KABATA a state guarantee for any contracts KABATA signs, and that the tolls will prove sufficient to repay the $150 Million by 2035.
In August, financial analyst Jamie Kenworthy told AMATS, the local transportation agency, that KABATA’s pro forma financial plan included only 2 lanes of cost but the revenue from 4-6 lanes of revenue. Probably in response, KABATA has now added $230 Million to the cost of the Bridge by moving Phase 2 forward to build a 4 lanes Bridge. From reading the description of the Bridge finances in the MTP it is not clear:
- What is included in Phase 2. The original Phase 2 included connecting Ingra-Gambell to the expanded 4 lane Bridge and 4 lanes to Knik Goose Bay Road but the estimate for that work was estimated by FHWA in 2009 as costing $815 Million, considerably more than KABATA’s $230 Million.
- How anything less than 4 lanes from downtown Anchorage to Knik Goose Bay Road in the Mat Su can generate the toll revenue in KABATA’s Financial Plan.
- Where the extra $230 million in toll revenue comes from since no Phase 2 costs were included in in KABATA’s estimate of $4.8 Billion in toll revenue in KABATA’s Financial Plan needed to finance just Phase 1.
See p. 6-33 for the MTP discussion of Bridge finances.
KABATA Chairman Mike Foster has an Anchorage Daily News Compass piece, arguing that KABATA’s population and traffic numbers are “nearly identical” to the numbers Scott Goldsmith of UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic provided AMATS that are used as the basis for the MTP. The MTP cites KABATA’s estimate of 36,000 trips a day crossing the proposed Knik Arm Bridge in 2035; when Ch2M Hill used ISER’s population projection to estimate Bridge traffic in 2035 their number was less than half the KABATA number or 17,700 trips a day.
