Palin Planning NEW Epic Road Project: $3-4 Million Per Mile

Boomers talked for decades about building a road to Nome, an epic 500-mile plus project that would run through some of the most remote wilderness of forest, tundra, rivers and valleys in the world. Now Gov. Sarah Palin, to the dismay of some state legislators, is making a push for what could be a $2 billion project.

Palin highlighted the project in her State of the State speech 10 days ago, declaring that she's pursuing a road to Nome, while in the same speech acknowledging a potential budget shortfall of more than a billion dollars. Some lawmakers are scratching their heads.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[MJinCanada]

The going price for an all-weather road is running at $1 to $2 million per mile in northern Canada. Even starting from, say, Tofty or Eureka, the road would still cross two mountain ranges, a major river, a couple dozen smaller waterways and a hell of a lot of muskeg, which means blasting, bridges and infill.

Going east to west in the north is a bit harder than north south because of the "grain" of the landscape and bedrock caused by the glaciers Sarah doesn't believe in. In northern Canada, communities, resource industries and even road builders use "winter roads", which is transport along frozen waterways. That's awkward if you want to go east or west and your drainage patterns run north and south.

Between Fairbanks to Nome, however, there aren't very many communities to benefit from a road. The route, however, would wind between several wildlife refuge areas, which leads me to think that she wants to open those up to resource development and/or hunting.

[Wide Stance]

Let's not forget that Palin BUILT that "Road to Nowhere" after Washington nixed her bridge project. The Alaska taxpayers footed the bill ($26 Million) for a three mile stretch of road that goes nowhere. The work continued on it _after_ the bridge was canned. For some reason this never got a lot of publicity during the campaign, despite the fact that the road was being constructed while she was campaigning.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/cnn-exposes-palins-road-t_n_128462.html

[mjeffn]

Honey, are you off the Jenny Craig?

[ron071]

Is this some kind of freak show? This woman cares ONLY for her ambitions despite a total lack of qualification or intelligence for anything other than what she thinks is good for HER. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH of this SLICKSTER.

[1will]

She should include contraceptives for the workers and sod for the side of the highway. It could then be part of Obama's Stimulus Package.

[fleaba]

Gotta love it...The cut the budget for the Alaska Marine Highway to build a dirt road to Nome....I wonder which one of her friends is behind this little deal.

[Jean AK]

Yeah, I'd love to see increased funding for the AK Marine Hwy and also the railroad. You're right -- there's something going on here.

[Lemeritus]

Almost all distances between Point A and Point B in Alaska are mind-boogling. Except for Fairbanks, anchored stubbornly on the banks of the Nenana River in the middle of the state, almost all towns and hamlets cling to the south-central and south-eastern coast. (It might be interesting to note that there is no road to Juneau, the state capital, population 30,000.)

Nome -- where it might be whimsically possible to actually see Putin's head floating on the horizon -- is 539 air miles (1,161 land miles) from Anchorage. 3500 people live there (and more power to them -- literally, this very harsh winter). There are six flights and 864 seats a week from Anchorage to Nome, enough to ferry 1/4 of the population back and forth per week. Even at a very pricey $400 per fare (give or take), the amount of money it would take to build a highway to Nome could underwrite 47,000 flights.

I'm not even going to think about the damage to the environment such a road would create.

[escrow7]

Another road to nowhere!!!

http://www.thirdeyechronicles.com

[GayGrandpa]

If they got that much money to waste then please ship some of it to us here in California­...

We are rapidly becoming the I.O.U. STATE! "California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants..." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget17-2009jan17,0,4472460.story

[Jean AK]

GayGrandpa, as an Alaskan I totally agree.

There's something screwy going on in our country when some states are suffering when others don't seem to care.

It's time we started to operate as one country. I have confidence in our new president.

[reliant1]

she's the medias newest toy to make $ and keep viewers/posters gaggling like geese.

anna nicole has been reborn and is available for use where ever needed.

[militarymomforobama]

If Alaska wants a road to nowhere--let them build it themselves.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

It will cost Alaska more than that to keep such a road open year round.

[PistovAmerican]

I know it's fun to kick Sarah, but this actually sounds like a forward-thinking project to me. The price tag is rediculous, though. Since one of the big supporters of this is probably gas and oil companies, why not let them pay for it? In rural Maine they have something called "logging roads", built by the timber companies, but usable by the public. Some of them are pretty lousy roads, and you have to yeild to lumber trucks, but private money built them. I know the technical difficulties of building through the Alaskan wilderness has got to be much greater than the woods of maine, but the oil companies could do the heavy lifting, and if there's increased need, public funds could come later to improve on the "oil roads"

[BethinIllinois]

So Republican pork is bad, while Obama pork (or that fancy beef!) is just wonderful.

Interesting.

[hortonhearsawho2]

Tomorrow the ABC's...no­w run along and play...fai­r this time.

[ThatOne4Me]

No. repubs think their pork is all good and dem pork is wasteful. you got it backwards, but that's typical repub thinking.

[ericmiami]

Stop making fun of Sarah! She has heard there will be a Blue-Light Special on silk boxers at the Wal-Mart in Nome.

[waynesmyer]

But! But! as any fool can tell, I was for the road to no where, before I was against it ! and now, I am sure that I can see Nieman-Marcas from my back yard!
We approve this message! Annie Coulter, Chairman, Vestal Virgins For Baby George

[l3wilso]

For a minute there I thought you wrote she read it in a "newspaper" or "journal"!