The Lynn Canal Highway, or Juneau Access Road, is a proposed road between

Skagway The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal wit ...

and

City and Borough of Juneau The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( ; tli, Dzánti K'ihéeni ), is the capital city of the state of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the se ...

, the capital of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. Such a road, if built, would still require ferry access to connect Juneau to the Alaskan highway network. The new road would be 47.9 miles long, built at a cost of $574 million, and be a part of

Alaska Route 7 Alaska Route 7 (abbreviated as AK-7) is a state highway in the Alaska Panhandle of the U.S. state of Alaska. It consists of four unconnected pieces, serving some of the Panhandle communities at which the Alaska Marine Highway ferries stop, and c ...

. The plan of the

Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) is a department within the government of Alaska. Its headquarters are in Alaska's capital city, Juneau. The mission of Alaska DOT&PF is to "''Keep Alaska Moving through service a ...

(DOT&PF) called for extending "The Road" northward from Juneau to a ferry terminal 18 miles south of

. The corridor crosses

Berners Bay Berners Bay (Lingít: ''Dax̱anáak'' or ''Wóoshde X̱’al.át Yé'') is a waterway in the U.S. state of Alaska, approximately north of Juneau. It is a large and deep indentation, about wide at the entrance, which is formed by Point Bridget and ...

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. The proposed road skirts the shore of a northwestern section of Alaska's

Inside Passage The Inside Passage (french: Passage Intérieur) is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland. The route extends from southeaster ...

, which was recently named a National Scenic Waterway. As of 2017, the project has been indefinitely shelved due to the state's budget crisis.Juneau Access cut from state budget
James Brooks. ''

Juneau Empire The ''Juneau Empire'' is a newspaper in Juneau, Alaska, United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consist ...

'', 16 December 2016

History

Juneau has been served by the

Alaska Marine Highway The Alaska Marine Highway (AMH) or the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) is a ferry service operated by the U.S. state of Alaska. It has its headquarters in Ketchikan, Alaska. The Alaska Marine Highway System operates along the south-central ...

ferry system since 1959. In 1987, citing "more than 15 years" of project work, Alaska senator Jim Duncan won federal funding to study nine options that would provide road or road/ferry access to Juneau. The previous year's Southeast Transportation Plan had cited prices ranging from $231.5 million to $440 million, with annual costs from $2.1 million to $12 million, depending mostly on the length of the road. Starting in the early 1990s, the

(DOT&PF) initiated the Juneau Access Improvements Project, intended to improve surface access between Juneau and communities further north. Because of the proposed routing, DOT&PF needed to obtain approvals and permits from several federal agencies and obtain an environmental impact statement. A draft of this report was issued in 1997 followed by a period of public comment and analysis. This process was halted in 2000 by former governor Tony Knowles due to the high costs of the project. The next governor,

Frank Murkowski Frank Hughes Murkowski (born March 28, 1933) is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Senator from Alaska from 1981 until 2002 and the eighth governor of Alaska from 2002 until 2006. In his 2006 re ...

, ordered the completion of the environmental impact statement in 2002, resulting in a supplemental draft EIS in January 2005 which was finalized in January 2006. Alignment along the preferred route incurred a loss of 70 acres of wetlands, 68 acres of old-growth forest, the possibility of up to a 26% reduction in the brown bear habitat, and disturbances to bald eagle nesting territory. The report was disputed by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, who claimed that the report violated several federal environmental acts by failing to propose improvements to the existing ferry system, and DOT&PF intervened as a defendant. In 2009, the court ordered the environmental impact statement to be rewritten. The state lost its options to appeal the ruling and in 2011 began work on a new draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS), which was completed in September, 2014. The public comment period on the SEIS, originally set to close on November 10, 2014, was extended until November 25, 2014. Citing the state’s multi-billion dollar financial crisis, Gov. Bill Walker announced on 15 December 2016 that the state is no longer backing construction of the Juneau Access Improvements Project.

Proposed alignment

The preferred route selected by the DOT&PF would be constructed according to Alternative 2B, as outlined in the environmental impact statement. This option includes 47.9 miles of new highway along the east shore of the Lynn Canal, to run from Echo Cove (at the current terminus of the Glacier Highway) to a new ferry terminal (at ) at the mouth of the Katzehin River, along

Chilkoot Inlet Chilkoot Inlet is an inlet in the Southeast region of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the eastern side of the Chilkat Peninsula in Lynn Canal. Chilkoot Inlet is the terminus of the Chilkoot River and its watershed, and also home to Lutak ...

. Ferry service from the Katzehin terminal would extend to Haines, on the opposite bank of Chilkoot Inlet, as well as Skagway, approximately 18 miles to the north.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite news , last =Kleeschulte , first =Chuck , title =Haines-to-Juneau road to be studied , newspaper =Juneau Empire , location =Juneau, United States , language =en , date =8 June 1987

General references

The Juneau Empire - The Divided LineTongass National Forest Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

External links

Juneau Access Improvements
(by Alaska Department of Transportation)
2014 SEIS FiguresJuneau Road
(an anti road lobbyist site) State highways in Alaska Transportation in Haines Borough, Alaska Transportation in Juneau, Alaska Transportation in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska Proposed state highways in the United States Proposed roads in the United States

History

Proposed alignment

See also

References

General references

External links