Juneau needs new ferry terminal like it needs a hole in a boat
- Larry Persily
- Aug 6
- 3 min read
By Larry Persily
Wrangell Sentinel
The state is taking money that was appropriated for one bad idea almost a generation ago and spending it on an equally wasteful idea.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Department of Transportation, which manages the Alaska Marine Highway System, has signed a $28.5 million contract to start work toward a new ferry terminal at Cascade Point, 40 long road miles north of downtown Juneau.
The money is coming from a kitty left over from a long-ago appropriation to build a longer road between Juneau and Haines or Skagway. The billion-dollar road was never built, though millions of dollars was foolishly spent on planning.
The governor has shifted the leftover planning money to a shorter road as a better idea than a longer road, as if that makes it a good road.
Mind you, the $28.5 million doesn’t get you a usable ferry dock, or any sort of dock. It will pay for permitting work, engineering, a bridge over a creek, a retaining wall and site prep.
The dock, berthing moorings, shore-based facilities, electrical power, water and sewer and everything else needed for a functional ferry terminal will cost tens of millions of dollars — money the state does not have in hand but figures it will get from the federal government.
Setting aside the reality that federal money these days is about as certain as a sunny summer day in Southeast Alaska, what’s the rush to spend money designing a project that may never get built — that shouldn’t get built.
It appears that the governor, whose term ends in 16 months and who has long advocated for the out-of-sight, out-of-mind remote ferry terminal, wants to push ahead while he still is in office and can direct spending, no matter how wasteful.
The Department of Transportation has not even completed an economic feasibility study of the project.
The borough assemblies for the two Lynn Canal communities the new terminal supposedly would benefit — Haines and Skagway — think it’s a bad idea and would do little to improve ferry service in Lynn Canal.
The state’s argument is that by directing people to a new ferry terminal far north of the current Juneau terminal at Auke Bay, the ships could reduce their running time up Lynn Canal, saving fuel and maybe squeezing in more trips.
Yet that ignores the fact that the shrunken ferry schedule is due to lack of crew and aging vessels being held out of service. It’s as if the Dunleavy administration is skipping over the two big problems to propose a solution that isn’t even on the nautical chart.
The Cascade Point “solution” is so far off the chart that a taxi or ride service from the terminal to the airport, medical offices or downtown would cost travelers more than the ferry ticket between Haines or Skagway and Juneau.
But don’t take Haines or Skagway’s word for it, much of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board, which Dunleavy appointed, thinks the $28.5 million is a seasick idea.
“The Alaska Marine Highway System has been plagued for 50 years with one-off projects that get foisted upon it … that then the system and the users have to deal with,” Wanetta Ayers, chair of the operations board, said at a meeting last month. “This is another one of those situations where it’s going to get foisted upon the system and we’re going to have to cope with it for 20 or 30 years until somebody admits it’s not going to work.”
Board member Bob Horchover was emphatic: “Without even a reason for doing it is, to me, a boondoggle.”
The Cascade Point terminal needs to sink before it swims in state dollars.
• Contact Larry Persily is the publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel, which first published this column.
