I lived in Ketchikan for 2 years in the early 1960s where I graduated from high school, and also spent a couple summers there during college. At that time the airport for Ketchikan was on Annette Island, a few minutes plane ride from the city. The big planes would land on Annette Island; then passengers would transfer to a small plane that would fly them to the waterfront at Ketchikan where they would land in the water. There was no practical place on Revillagigedo Island, where Ketchikan is, to build an airport. Sometime after I left the airport was build on Gravina Island across the channel from Ketchikan. Transit between the airport and the city is via a boat.

In comes the Alaska Congressional delegation. “Let’s build a $389 million bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island so the great visitors to and citizens of Ketchikan don’t have to take a boat ride.”

The distance for the bridge would be around 1,200 feet shore to shore or more depending on its placement. One big catch is that there are only about 50 people that live on Gravina Island. But, the airport is there. That’s a lot of money for any bridge. You can compare it to the dollars estimated to replace the I-5 (Interstate Highway 5) bridges between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Here the estimate is around $4 billion for eight lanes of traffic and two light rail commuter train tracks. That’s only around ten times more for a bridge (or two parallel bridges) nearly twice as long as the Ketchikan Bridge and five times as wide. The Interstate Bridge will carry thousands of vehicles a day.

Whether you agree or not, I don’t think it was unreasonable for the Alaska delegation to seek moneys to build this bridge. If the bridge were built I don’t think it would take long for the development to begin on Gravina Island. Maybe even some large manufacturer would seize the chance to pick up some cheap land and build a factory there.

So let’s dump the references to the Bridge to Nowhere. It would go somewhere and certainly would not be any worse “pork” than a lot of other government spending.