Transportation

The air was clear and smooth over the Lynn Canal between Juneau and Haines on Thursday, so there was no need to use the new technology installed in the Cessna Grand Caravan’s instrument panel. But when the clouds roll in, as they are forecasted to do next week, the updated avionics will allow pilots to fly this common route through conditions that could typically ground passengers, mail and cargo.

“We put all this in place and then we have had just gorgeous weather,” said Alaska Seaplanes’ Marketing Manager Andy Kline with a laugh.

The company has developed new approach paths and installed GPS equipment to make low visibility flights safer and more reliable.

For people who live in communities like Haines, with no jet or road access, travel in and out is mitigated by the weather and the ferry schedule. The comings and goings of the state’s ferries are so critical that they are announced on the radio with the weather. Locals typically build an extra night into their travel plans to account for canceled flights. “If you want to get there, take the ferry,” is a well-worn piece of travel advice that long-time residents dole out to newcomers.

“We have a goal of being as reliable as the jet,” Kline said of the small plane operator. “We’re not there yet. And even these new approaches don’t get us quite there yet. We’re still going to be on the ground sometimes when the jets are flying.”

To realize that goal, Alaska Seaplanes, the region’s most comprehensive carrier, has developed new approach paths and installed GPS equipment sensitive enough to allow instrument flights even in the challenging geography of the region. Haines, Hoonah, Sitka, Juneau, Kake, Wrangell and Petersburg flights will benefit from the upgrades, which were costly for the small carrier. Flight prices have gone up significantly in the last five years. A disadvantage for small companies is that they must go through the same approvals processes for new routes as major carriers, like Alaska Airlines, which is a time burden on the small staff.

Kline said it has already changed how often flights get out and the conditions travelers experience. “People who’ve flown to Hoonah have never flown through the clouds,’ he said. “So we’re actually having to brief our passengers before they get on board because people get really concerned.”

Most Southeast communities do not have airports with ground control and towers; they have airstrips. Pilots typically fly under a set of regulations designed around high visibility conditions, so they have lower thresholds for getting out in inclement weather. Instrument flights can be employed in low visibility conditions. They rely on GPS technology and Federal Aviation Administration approved flight paths. Seaplanes recently updated nearly all its wheeled aircraft — float planes were not part of the change — and just had its new flight paths approved for use.

A new approach years in the making

Alaska Seaplanes Assistant Chief Pilot Gregg Hake helped explain the changes at a community meeting on Thursday at the Haines library. The route between Juneau and Haines is one of the primary runs out of Juneau.

“How many of you have had a flight canceled?” he asked the crowd.

The room erupted in laughter as every hand went up. “Trick question!” called out former mayor Jan Hill.

Hake said in the week after the upgrades, he flew four flights using instruments that would have otherwise been canceled or delayed.

Flights that use what is called IFR, or instrument flight rules, technology are not new, but the sensitivity of the new equipment and the paths it allows the planes to take are new. Federal approvals took years.

“When you don’t have visual recognition in the clouds, it’s flying you on a very specific approach that keeps you away from mountains and keeps you at the right altitude and all those things,” Hake explained.

Water and mountains complicate the flight paths in Southeast Alaska. Cooperation is involved, too. Ground control is in Juneau, but the airspace over Haines and much of Southeast Alaska is controlled by a tower in Anchorage.

“The legendary status of Alaska as being a difficult place to fly in comes particularly true here,” he said. “We’re flying between mountains that come straight up out of the water, which complicates things like radio communication, complicates things like GPS reception.”

Hake said pilots are not able to use very many land-based navigational devices because the mountains block the transmission to the airplane.

There are other variables, too. He said magnetism from iron in the Chilkat mountain range can throw a compass 20 degrees off north. Luckily, that does not affect satellite navigation systems.

High visibility is a perk on a flight over seemingly endless icefields and glacier-carved fjords whose silt marbles the deep jade color of the water. But, for people who live here, the option to fly safely in marginal weather is important.

On a sunny Saturday at the Fisherman’s Bend gas station back in February, Juneau resident Joyce Sepel was filling up her tank. She said the Auke Bay gas station is her favorite.

“I’ve been going to Fred Meyer because it was cheaper,” she said. “But now I’ll just watch. I like coming here. It’s convenient, and I love watching the water here while I do it. But they’ve been the most competitive during the winter.”

On Valentine’s Day, prices at Auke Bay stations were cheaper than elsewhere in Juneau — as much as 40 cents cheaper. De Hart’s charged $3.50 per gallon, and the Fisherman’s Bend station charged $3.51. 

Meanwhile, Mike’s Airport Express was charging $3.70 per gallon. Petro One was charging $3.58 at its Lemon Creek station. Downtown, the Delta Western station was charging $3.90.

Some listeners have asked us why gas tends to be cheaper in Auke Bay. For her last Curious Juneau, erstwhile KTOO reporter Katie Anastas decided to find out. And as a bonus, she took on another reader question: Why does it cost more to fly to Ketchikan than to fly all the way to Seattle?

Catching drivers before they head south

Matthew Lewis is an economics professor at Clemson University. He studies how gas stations compete with each other, and how consumers respond to that competition.

“If consumers are driving or commuting a fair distance, they’re probably passing more gas station options along the way,” he said. “So that gives much more flexibility in where consumers might purchase.”

If someone lives in Auke Bay and drives to Lemon Creek or downtown for work every day, that driver passes by a lot of gas stations. Lewis said the Auke Bay stations need to keep prices low to try to catch those drivers before they go south.

“It is on the outskirts of where people are,” he said. “It’s not a convenient location for a lot of people, and so they need to have a relatively low price to stay competitive. Stations on a prominent, convenient part of a heavily traveled road or downtown can charge a high price and many consumers will still go.”

But gas stations do compete within neighborhoods

More broadly, four things affect the cost of gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The biggest is the cost of crude oil, which makes up more than half of the retail price of gasoline. Lower oil production drives up crude oil’s cost per barrel. 

Taxes and the costs of refining and distribution make up the rest.

As those costs change, so do the prices at the pump. But ultimately, Lewis said, stations decide how much they think they can charge.

When the crude oil and refined gasoline prices go up, the stations have to raise their prices and they do so fairly rapidly,” he said. “But when oil and wholesale costs go down, the stations tend to be a little bit slower to lower their price.”

Lewis said competition drives stations’ prices, even within the same neighborhood. Back in October, the Juneau Empire reported an 80-cent per gallon difference between the two Auke Bay stations.

“Prices do change regularly, so consumers really often aren’t all that well informed about what different stations are charging at different points in time,” Lewis said.

So next time you need to fill up, call around to a few stations. The lowest price could be closer than you think.

Along those same lines…

Have you ever wondered why it’s sometimes cheaper to fly from Juneau to Seattle than to Ketchikan? Some of our listeners have.

Alaska Travelgram writer Scott McMurren answered us with a question: “How many airlines fly between Juneau and Seattle?”

There are two.

“So Alaska and Delta compete on that route, particularly in the summer,” McMurren said. “The next question is, how many airlines offer jet service between Juneau and Ketchikan?”

For jet service, there’s just one.

Like gas prices, it comes down to competition. Multiple airlines will compete for customers. But if one airline has a monopoly on a route, like Alaska Airlines does from Juneau to Ketchikan, it’s up to them to set the price. 

WASHINGTON — In an effort to crack down on airlines that charge passengers steep fees to check bags and change flights, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced new regulations aimed at expanding consumer protections.

One of the final rules announced Wednesday requires airlines to show the full price of travel before passengers pay for their tickets. The other will force airlines to provide prompt cash refunds when flights are canceled or significantly changed.

“Passengers deserve to know upfront what costs they are facing and should get their money back when an airline owes them – without having to ask,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement announcing the new rules.

Surprise junk fees have become a large and growing source of revenue for airlines in recent years, according to the DOT.

“Today’s announcements will require airlines to both provide passengers better information about costs before ticket purchase, and promptly provide cash refunds to passengers when they are owed — not only saving passengers time and money, but also preventing headaches,” Buttigieg said.

The airline industry is unlikely to welcome the new rules. At a hearing on the proposed fee rule in March 2023, an industry lobbying group representing American, Delta and United said it would be too difficult for airlines to disclose their charges more clearly.

“The amount of unwanted and unneeded information forced upon passengers” by the new policy would only cause “confusion and frustration,” warned Doug Mullen, the deputy general counsel at Airlines for America. “Very few, if any, need or want this information, and especially when they are initially trying to understand schedule and fare options.”

But the DOT insists its new rule will give consumers the information they need to better understand the true costs of air travel.

“I believe this is to the benefit of the sector as a whole,” Buttigieg said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, because passengers will have “more confidence in the aviation sector.”

The new rules require airlines to disclose all baggage, change, and cancellation fees, and to share that information with third-party booking sites and travel agents.

The regulation also prohibits bait-and-switch tactics, the DOT says, that disguise the true cost of flights by advertising a low base fare that does not include all mandatory fees.

“This is really about making sure that we create a better experience for passengers, and a stronger aviation sector in the United States,” Buttigieg said in the NPR interview.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Juneau residents who ride Capital Transit buses to the airport, the University of Alaska Southeast and social service providers on Teal Street will need to find other means of transportation beginning Monday, April 22. 

Last week, the city announced it would temporarily suspend routes 5 and 6, citing a shortage of drivers and maintenance workers. 

Capital Transit Superintendent Rich Ross said they hope to restore service as soon as they can fill the positions. He said he hopes that can happen before July. 

“Our maintenance team has been experiencing staffing shortages for nearly two years now, so a lot of it has more to do with the availability of running buses we have,” he said. “Out of the 18 buses, I’d say on a daily basis three to four of them are down for repairs.”

Route 5, called the University Connector, runs from the Valley Transit Center to Auke Bay and UAS. Route 6, called the Riverside/Airport Connector, has stops at the airport, Nugget Mall and Teal Street.

This isn’t the first time the routes have been suspended in recent years. Ross said they typically have the lowest ridership. 

“The University of Alaska sees significantly reduced activity during the summer months, further decreasing demand for route five. Similarly, Route 6 hasn’t been super heavily utilized,” he said. 

This summer the city plans to start a new “tripper bus” service to help handle the added demand during cruise season. It’s essentially an extra bus that would follow the buses that already go from downtown to the Mendenhall Valley near the glacier.

Ross said the worker shortages won’t stop that new service from happening, but it will scale it down.

“I think we’ll be able to make it happen — right now with our fleet size, we just can’t do what we want to do,” he said. 

More information about the route suspensions — and job opportunities — can be found on Capital Transit’s website.

If you’re thinking about getting an electric vehicle, you’re not alone.

People in the U.S. buy more than a million new cars every month, and as of March, less than 10% of those are electric vehicles. But more than half of car shoppers are at least considering battery-powered cars and SUVs, according to multiple studies.

And shoppers have lots of questions. In January, The Sunday Story, an NPR podcast, asked listeners for their EV questions. More than 60 listeners sent in queries, and The Sunday Story and Life Kit teamed up to answer them. The listener questions have been edited for length and clarity.

Are EVs truly better for the planet, even with mining for batteries and fossil-fuel-based electricity to charge them? (This was the No. 1 question asked by our listeners.)

The answer is yes. Many researchers have confirmed it, and online tools let you compare the impacts for yourself. One of the most recent analyses comes from Corey Cantor with the energy research company BloombergNEF, who headlined his report last month: “No Doubt About It: EVs Really Are Cleaner Than Gas Cars.”

“Big picture, moving away from spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere is a good thing for the climate,” he says. And the environmental benefits of EVs are getting bigger over time as grids get cleaner.

Is it better from an environmental standpoint to buy an electric vehicle now, or keep driving the gas car you have until you need a new car? –Ali Mercural, Portland, Ore.

For the climate, there’s a strong case for switching now.

Yes, creating that new EV — getting the materials to build it from scratch — is resource-intensive. But the climate impact of a gas-powered car increases every single day you drive it.

To be precise, more than 85% of a gas-powered vehicle’s lifetime emissions come from using the car, not from building the car. That’s according to researchers at Argonne National Laboratory. And that means the new EV, despite its manufacturing costs, will be cleaner over time.

Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests taking the long view on decisions like these. Think not just about emissions right now but over the entire time you’ll own a vehicle.

“Generally speaking, switching to that electric vehicle is going to provide a benefit over the lifetime of the car,” she says.

I’m not proud, but I’ve run out of gas twice in my life. Luckily, I had friends nearby to bring me a gallon of gas. What would happen if I ran out of charge in an EV? Would a tow truck come to charge me up? How long would that take? And how embarrassing would that be?–Robin Rzechula, Chicago

We can’t promise it won’t be embarrassing, but a tow truck could tow you to a charger. In some cities, AAA will bring a mobile charger to you.

Overall, charging is a different experience than fueling up. With a combustion engine, you have to regularly make a stop at a gas station to fill up. With an EV, for daily driving, most people charge at home overnight – which drivers frequently cite as a major perk of EV ownership. (This does require the ability to charge at home).

For road trips, on the other hand, many parts of the country still have limited availability of fast chargers, which are high-speed chargers designed for use in the middle of a trip. Charger speeds and reliability at public charging stations vary, and charging takes much longer than filling up at a gas station.

So charging takes less work day-to-day, but more planning on long trips. Map out chargers on your route so you won’t find yourself calling AAA.

Does leasing an electric car come with the same perks (like tax rebates) as buying an electric car? –Hallie Andrews, Washington, D.C.

The same or better.

There’s a federal $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an EV, now available as an up-front credit toward the cost of the car. But the list of vehicles that qualify is short because of requirements meant to support U.S. jobs and supply chains. Buyers also have to be under an income cap.

Leased electric vehicles all qualify for a $7,500 credit – no matter where they’re built, with no income cap. Check your lease paperwork to confirm that the credit is being fully passed along to you.

Wouldn’t it be better to design cities around mass transit and use mass transit than get everyone to convert to electric vehicles? –Thomas Guffey, Los Angeles

Yes, designing cities to encourage mass transit – and to make them more walkable and bikeable – has a lower carbon footprint than relying on electric vehicles, in addition to other benefits. Electric bikes also have a fraction of the environmental footprint of EVs.

Switching to EVs is an important part of fighting climate change, but far from the only change that needs to happen.

The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.

Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and sign up for our newsletter.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

State lawmakers got some new details Tuesday about the federal government’s partial approval of a document outlining federally funded transportation projects.

The Federal Highway Administration gave the go-ahead to a revised Statewide Transportation Improvement Program in late March after rejecting an earlier submission. But the “partial” in “partial approval” means there’s a lot of work left to do, Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson told the House Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

“We are ongoing with follow-ups at this time with Federal Highways,” Anderson said. “We’ll be having a debrief next week with the Federal Highway Administration to continue on to some of the items that we have questions on with the partial approval as well.”

Six of the more than 200 projects outlined in the planning document were excluded from approval. Federal officials flagged three projects that should have been included in the planning documents for local transportation planning groups but were not. Federal officials say other projects didn’t have clear funding plans or were incorrectly grouped together.

The Federal Highway Administration lists six pages of revisions to the planning process that must be made within the next six months. Additionally, Anderson said the state must provide more details on dozens of projects all across Alaska before they’re approved.

Even so, Anderson said the delays are not likely to bog down construction this summer.

“We’ve awarded over $300 million in construction contracts. And that’s, you know, continuing work that’s on the street that everyone will see out there this summer, so we haven’t slowed down,” he said.

In another change, Anderson said projects that experience significant cost overruns will require approval by the federal government in a formal amendment to the transportation plan.