Monday, March 4, 2013

Day Boat ACF Comment Period Extended by State

Deputy Commissioner Yost reports that time has been extended for comment on the Design Concept Report for the Day Boat Alaska Class Ferry (Day Boat ACF).  For details, see the email that I received today:
Hello Mayor Scott,

We have just posted a link on the AMHS website, under News & Updates/Alaska Class Ferry/Submit a Comment.

The link is:
http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/alaska_class/submit_comment.shtml

We will also post a link on the DOT&PF homepage to direct folks to the ACF comment link.  The comment page explains that any comments addressing potential factual errors (e.g. route lengths, speed time calculations) should be submitted by March 15, 2013 (we have added a week to the March 8 date due to the delay in getting the comment link working).  The page also explains that while comments are welcome throughout the project’s development, general comments or questions on the concepts in the DCR should be submitted by March 29, 2013 in order to be used in development of the Design Study Report (DSR).  This will give the public ample opportunity to comment on the DCR before we move forward.  The consultant design team will evaluate the DCR and begin some of the analysis required to address issues already identified, but the DSR will be delayed until the latter part of April.
I appreciate the extension and will certainly say so tomorrow during testimony to the Joint House and Senate Transportation Committee public hearings on the Design Concept Report.  Please join us at the Haines Borough Public Library, 1:30, where we will watch the proceedings and testify in turn. It will be helpful to hear from others across the region if not the state.

There is a feeling called "deja vu" - when you sense that you have done this before.  I feel like we are repeating the experience the DOT had with the first Alaska Class Ferry design.  They went to the public and after 4 years of process, the design "morphed" into a vessel suitable for the route and suitable for the passengers on the route.  DOT has determined that the morphed vessel was a mistake; maybe so, but I worry about the alternative: clam-shell bow doors, open aft deck, fewer seats than passengers, no direct route from Skagway to Juneau, vending machines, an assumption that the vessels run "half empty" in the winter, no unaccompanied vehicles, and nothing if a $20 million terminal is not built... . I see lost revenue, even danger, and a plan that may be penny wise and pound foolish.  I see vessels designed to serve a system laced with yet unbuilt roads; and vessels that seem more suited to Puget Sound than to the upper Lynn Canal.  The original ACF was designed to serve the whole system, Skagway to Prince Rupert. Let's get back to it.


No comments:

Post a Comment