Whittier: the road to prosperity.

• Author: Carroll, Ed
• Position: Alaska

Ben Butler, Whittier's mayor, must face a little irony every day as he heads to work. Butler works on the Alaska Railroad's Whittier shuttle, the small town's lifeline to the outside world. Looking at Whittier's brief history, you could say the town only exists because the location could be reached by rail.

Yet Butler, as mayor and as activist for economic development, works on the line for the company that has Whittier in its grip. Very little comes or goes in Whittier that doesn't ride the rails, and every work day Butler climbs aboard the machine that in his civic life he has worked to supplant with a road.

"Even after the road is completed, there will be good uses for the trains," Butler says. And while town leaders say their relationship with the Alaska Railroad Corp. has improved recently, they also point to the railroad as a source of the economic woes that threaten Whittier's viability.

The cruise industry left Whittier in 1993 and has not returned. With it went the waterfront jobs and the brief boom for restaurants and bars that served the ships' crews. Cruise industry leaders pointed to the head tax imposed on their passengers by Whittier's city council; residents point to the expense and logistical problems of moving passengers, supplies and trash by rail. They also say the railroad failed to maintain the company-owned dock the passenger liners used.

Since then, the military tank farm has been surplused, barge dockings have dropped and the city has been forced to cut staff. Voters eliminated a city sales tax three years ago, state revenue sharing has decreased, and the largest property owner - the Alaska Railroad, with more than 50 percent of the developed land - is tax-exempt.

The city council has cut its budget by about 24 percent in the last two years, privatizing its garbage collection and health care clinic along the way. At approximately $590,000, this year's budget for town services for a population of 271 is less than the budget to run the boat harbor. Fifty-one percent of the population qualities for some form of public assistance according to acting city manager Dave Morgan.

"That just shows how the economy has withdrawn," Morgan says. "In the last 15 years we've seen it all evaporate."

But the forecast for Whittier is far from bleak. The town has embarked on an aggressive planning, improvement and economic development plan, determined to build a sustainable community. And a greater force has vaulted the town's future beyond a debate between residents and the railroad: Demand for access to Prince William Sound by Anchorage residents and the tourism industry has driven the plan for a road to Whittier.

Final approval was secured this spring for a $50 million, one-lane toll road to cover the last few miles to town. The road will share the existing roadbed through the tunnel that links Whittier to the outside world.

"Without access, it's not economically feasible to do business in Whittier," Butler says. But with the road approved and headlights shining at the end of Whittier's tunnel, the town's future is bright. Tourism will be the locomotive for the Whittier you can drive to, and cheaper access could draw business to the town's shores.

"We envision a diversified and stable economy that can support about 600 people," Morgan says, with an industrial corridor from the head of the bay to downtown. A town-sponsored study predicts a $30 million local economy and 400 new jobs within a decade.

Also in Whittier's decade of growth, Butler says, residents will have the chance to spread out and build new houses away from the existing town core. "We should try to become...