BOTTLENECKS BROKEN BY FERRY SYSTEMS.

• Author: SCHMITZ, RICHARD F.

Southcentral and Southeast Alaska are experiencing traffic congestion that may be eased by transportation systems utilizing the state's waterways.

First, canoes and skinboats plied Alaska's craggy coasts. Then came the sailing ships. Newly found gold spawned a network of sled dog trails and river steamships; the Richardson Highway was opened and the Alaska Railroad constructed. WW II brought airstrips and the Alaska Highway. Statehood came, and the oil patch boomed extending Alaska's frost-heaved road system to the Bering Sea.

Oil wealth and a boom in tourism filled many of the potholes in Alaska's transportation infrastructure in the 1980s and 1990s. True, no new highways have been built in Alaska in the last 20 years--arguably Alaska's richest two decades since the Russian eagle was pulled down for the last time in 1867. But at least some of the state's oil wealth has been spent widening, smoothing and strengthening Alaska's major highways.

With a proposed new highway connecting Juneau with the road system at Haines or Skagway on indefinite hold, it's unlikely any new major highways will be built anytime soon. Instead, the state's transportation visionaries are looking to break open a handful of key bottlenecks through ferry service. Fixing these pressure points will be the major undertaking of the first part of the 21st century when it comes to moving Alaska's transportation infrastructure ahead.

One of these bottlenecks exists between Alaska's largest municipality and the fastest-growing region-in other words the stretch between Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Other areas with traffic congestion can be found in Southeast Alaska: between Juneau and Sitka, between Juneau and Haines-Skagway, between Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island, between Ketchikan and Wrangell.

A new generation of Alaska ferries will be first in line to fix these stress points-not only in Southeast, but in Anchorage as well.

"The key is fixing bottlenecks," said Juneau Rep. Bill Hudson, a former head of the Alaska Marine Highway System. "We've paved almost every highway, widened shoulders, put in better drainage and heavier roadbeds. We've dramatically increased capacity over the past 20 years."

Officials in the Mat-Su Borough are close to finalizing plans for a passenger ferry that will connect Anchorage at a Ship Creek terminal with the Valley at Port McKenzie.

Port McKenzie-located across Knik Arm from downtown Anchorage--will be the first new port...