In Juneau, firm resistance to a road out of isolation

JUNEAU, Alaska: The proposed 51-mile Juneau Access Road would provide something this remote capital city has never had: an overland route to the rest of North America. No longer would people have to take a ferry or a flight.

Yet beyond the political and environmental fight that will determine whether the nearly $400 million road will ever be built, there is a central question: What would the improved access change the most, Juneau or outsiders' perceptions of it?

"There is an insularity here," Mayor Bruce Botelho said, "that I think is a net positive."

Would the road rouse Juneau residents to emerge from their rainforest isolation and engage the rest of Alaska?

Would it help people in Anchorage, the state's economic and population center, finally accept Juneau as the state capital, because they would be able to drive there — even if it took two days?

And is there such a thing as too much access? Caravans of recreational vehicles clogging Juneau's steep and narrow streets might add more tension in a town already uncomfortable with its dependence on the million or so cruise ship passengers who drop in for a few hours each summer.

"I want to keep Alaska the way it is," said Greg Lutton, 38, waiting to catch a ferry last month in Auke Bay, north of downtown. "I'll move down south if I want that kind of stuff."

But in a city where declines in logging and fishing have driven workers away, where lawmakers regularly mull moving the capital to a more central location, many residents also say the potential changes are worth it, for the sake of improving regional relations and connectivity.

"We're losing our younger generations," said Richard Knapp, who first started trying to build the road in 1984, when he became Alaska's commissioner of transportation. "Opportunities are limited here, and there's nothing to do."

The new road would start where the old one ends now, at Berners Bay, a recreational jewel north of Juneau, and follow the shoreline of the steep and pristine fjord that is Lynn Canal toward the cities of Skagway and Haines, where highways connect to Canada and eventually northern Alaska and the Lower 48.

This month, the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to approve a permit to begin final design and initial construction.

About $112 million in federal money has been designated for the project, and last month the Environmental Protection Agency said it would allow the project to go forward.

Yet like so many ambitious Alaska proposals that have been cast as critical to economic development, the Juneau Access Road may have federal approval but it does not necessarily have a public mandate. Legal challenges have piled up.

In the years since Knapp first pushed for the project, local environmentalists have become far better organized in their opposition. While the previous governor, Frank Murkowski, a Republican, supported the road, the current one, Sarah Palin, also a Republican, has said it is not a priority given that pending environmental lawsuits could potentially bring construction to a halt.

"The most fiscally conservative thing to do is wait for all the litigation to conclude and see if the project is even possible," said Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman for the governor. "This could end up going absolutely nowhere."

State transportation officials say they will follow the governor's lead and wait, for now.

The road reveals strong divisions among residents here, with surveys and advisory votes showing a near-even split among them over whether to improve the state ferry system or build a new road. Up in Haines and Skagway, residents are more likely to oppose the road.

Some Juneau residents echo arguments made by opponents in lawsuits, saying that the road poses an environmental threat as well as a daunting engineering challenge and will prove much more expensive than is projected. While the steepness of the terrain is expected to make construction extremely complicated (a video opposing the route, "Steep, Not Cheap," is on YouTube) engineers also say the threat of avalanches would keep the road closed for about 34 days per year.

"They don't know what they're getting into; it's straight up," said Mike Fischer, as he stepped off a boat after bear hunting last month north of Echo Cove in Berners Bay, where the road would begin. "It ain't happening. They can't do it."

At this, Fischer's friend and fellow hunter, Ken Kreitzer, interrupted.

"He's a 'cave' person," Kreitzer said of Fischer. "You know what a 'cave' person is? It's a citizen against virtually everything."

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