A ferry tale: roads and shuttles designed to connect Southeast towns bring much controversy.

• Author: Bonham Colby, Nicole A.
• Position: ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY'S 2006 TRANSPORTATION SECTION

With a winter of rough waters behind it, the state's vision of a mix of roads and ferries for Southeast Alaska has been mired in a turbulent storm of public controversy, with the editorial pages of the region's newspapers clogged with conflicting opinion.

But that doesn't mean the state's intended network of land and waterborne transport is going away. Instead, the state is both pulling back and moving forward-pulling back its use of the controversial fast ferries and moving forward with a model of day shuttle ferries and existing road projects.

ROUGH WINTER

Last November, the state announced it would relocate the fast ferries M/V Fairweather and M/V Chenega to create a one-day, express ferry ride between Ketchikan and Juneau via Petersburg. Each ferry would transit to Petersburg, where the vessels would switch passengers and continue back to homeport. On paper, the idea was billed as one of increased scrutiny by the state to better align the Alaska Marine Highway System (AHMS) to the needs of its island-bound local user base. At the time, the state's director of marine transportation, Robin Taylor, said the experiment would prove if the fast ferry model is appropriate for the region. "The Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan calls for the use of a total of three fast vehicle ferries, and we need to know if they will work as planned before we buy any more of them," Taylor announced last November.

Half a year later, the experiment is deemed a high-profile failure; the state says it will curtail purchase of additional fast ferries and may mothball those it has, and local politicians are pointing fingers. It's a situation that has critics calling the winter experiment a debacle by an agenda-led administration looking to supplant Alaska's ferries with big road construction. Of the decision to pull the fast ferries, critics call it premature and illogical, given the ridership of the vessels in their original configuration. In March, the Juneau Empire criticized the winter ferry experiment as an illogical folly that caused the premature death of a legitimate transportation method that showed value in its original configuration of running short-haul crossings in Lynn Canal and Prince William Sound. "Who thought anyone would want to take a fast ferry between Ketchikan and Juneau in winter?" the newspaper posed.

For their part, state transportation officials continue to regard the winter reconfiguration as an effort to better align the service with...