Say Anything Blog

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Tom Wilson is faced with a problem many city administrators would envy: How to spend $1.5 million on a bus stop.

Wilson, Anchorage's director of public transportation, has all that money for a new and improved bus stop outside the Anchorage Museum of History and Art thanks to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record) --� fondly referred to by Alaskans as "Uncle Ted" for his prodigious ability to secure federal dollars for his home state.

Wilson is prepared to think big.

The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure. Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs would be nice.

"It is going to be a showpiece stop," Wilson said.

He acknowledges the money has put him in an awkward position.

"We have a senator that gave us that money and I certainly won't want to appear ungrateful," he said. At the same time, he does not want the public to think the city is wasting the money. So "if it only takes us $500,000 to do it, that's what we will spend."

That is still five to 50 times the typical cost of bus stop improvements in Anchorage.

The money was contained in a $388 billion spending bill passed by Congress last November, when Stevens was head of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The current transportation spending bill has a number of similar items.

If the President is ever going to use his veto, he needs to do it now.

Update:

James Joyner:

...the outrage isn't so much that we're paying 150 times the going rate for a bus stop--although that's admittedly a bad thing--but that we're paying for a bus stop at all. How in the world is that related to even a loose interpretation of the responsibility of the federal government?

Further, even if one thinks the Feds should be in the business of handing out largess, one would think Anchorage would have better uses for $1.5 million. Surely, it has bridges that need rebuilding, roads that need building or refurbishing, schools that need roofing, and so forth. Some of those things even involve interstate commerce.

Good point. I can tell you from experience that there is no road in Alaska, thanks to the horrendous weather, that isn't in need of some major repair. But really, why does Alaska need our money at all? We're talking about a state so rich from oil revenue that citizens get money back from the government instead of paying a sales tax.