The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, United States with Gravina Island, an island that contains the Ketchikan International Airport as well as 50 residents. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation, particularly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, were the bridge's biggest advocates in Congress, and helped push for federal funding. The project encountered fierce opposition outside of Alaska as a symbol of pork barrel spending and is labeled as one of the more prominent "bridges to nowhere". As a result, the US congress removed the federal earmark for the bridge in 2005. Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" has continued as of March 2, 2011, in the passing of H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 by the House of Representatives.
Read more about Gravina Island Bridge: Background, History, 2008 Campaign Issue, Road To Nowhere, 2011 Activity
Famous quotes containing the words island and/or bridge:
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.”
—Paul Simon (b. 1949)