Lynn Canal Highway

The Lynn Canal Highway, or Juneau Access Road, is a proposed road between Skagway and City and Borough of Juneau, the capital of the U.S. state of Alaska.

Despite local divisiveness over the issue of improving access to and from Alaska's capital city, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities' current (2007) plan calls for extending "The Road" northward from Juneau to Skagway, connecting with the Klondike Highway and thus with the main continental road system. The corridor also crosses Berners Bay LUD II which is a congressionally-designated roadless area created by the Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA). The act permits crossing LUD IIs when the governor of the State of Alaska designates routes as essential transportation corridors. This was done with the Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan (SATP) in August 2004. The proposed road skirts the shore of a northwestern section of Alaska's Inside Passage, which was recently named a National Scenic Waterway. The Tongass National Forest is currently adjusting its Forest Plan based on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which may have an effect on whether this road is built.

If the proposed road goes in place, 80,000 drive-in visitors are estimated in addition to the 895,000 (2005) visitors arriving each summer by cruise ship to Juneau. A state study says that Juneau should expect 900 to 3,400 additional recreational vehicles in a road's first year. A cursory search of Frommer's and the Tongass National Forest website suggusts approximately 169 camping sites in and around Juneau as of July, 2008. (Spruce Meadows RV Park, Auke Village Campground, Mendenhall Lake Campground, Savikko RV Park and Eagle Beach State Park.) A 150 day tourist season and an average three day stay would suggest potential overcrowding and capacity issues on some high traffic occasions.

Local and national environmental groups have been battling to question the need for more roads, and, in particular, this road. They argue that Alaska is an unusually rich habitat for wildlife specifically because, in the Lower 48, much of what was once wild is now paved or plowed over, and stopping the Juneau Access Road is a chance to preserve one of the last remaining regions that is truly free of human interference. Dissenters argue that the road is more costly than it is worth, the cost to maintain it is unsupportable, it will be dangerous, it will open up more areas to easy poaching, and that they live in a place without connecting roads by choice and want to retain their city's unique character. Proponents for the road argue that a road would secure Juneau as the capital city (since the capital has twice been voted to be moved nearer Anchorage, this is an ever-present fear in the minds of many Juneauites that live in a city they feel would hardly exist without state bureaucratic presence), that the increased tourism via buses and RV'ers will boost Juneau's economy, that a road would make Juneau the top sea port in Southeast Alaska, that it would provide more readily available healthcare to residents of Skagway and Haines, and allow Juneauites to drive north instead of catching a ferry or plane.

References

* [http://juneauempire.com/road/ The Juneau Empire - The Divided Line]
* [http://www.tongass-seis.net/ Tongass National Forest Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement]

External links

* [http://juneaublogger.com/naturalresources/?cat=7 Juneau Blogger - "Juneau Access Road"]
* [http://www.juneauroad.com/ Juneau Road]
* [http://www.taxpayer.net/road2ruin/roads/juneaaccessroad.htm Road to Ruin: Juneau Access Road]