Transportation

The intensifying competition between Alaska Airlines and rival Delta Air Lines in the Western skies does not seem to be hurting the bottom line of either company.

Seattle-based Alaska Air posted a record second quarter profit late last week. It came a day after Delta toasted its own high revenues. Alaska executives are still concerned about a flood of new seats on its home turf.

Delta Air Lines is rapidly adding domestic and international flights at Seattle’s airport as it builds up a new Pacific gateway there. Much of that new service overlaps with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines.

Andrew Harrison is Alaska’s Senior VP for Planning. He told Wall Street analysts that his carrier is holding its own.

“Our second quarter results give us confidence we are on the right track.”

Harrison says his airline is planning “more aggressive advertising”… improvements to food and wine offerings and to make its frequent flier program “stronger.”

“We are making some tactical schedule adjustments to increase our flying in some of these markets to defend our franchise. This may have short term impact. But we believe the water will find its level eventually.”

Wall Street seems less confident. Alaska Air Group’s stock plummeted more than 9 percent over the course of Thursday’s trading.

Southeast Alaskans can learn more about regional transportation projects at a series of meetings starting Aug. 6.

The state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is hosting the sessions during August and September. They’ll focus on the latest version of the Southeast Alaska Transportation Plan.

Department spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says each meeting will have two parts.

“There will be an open house that will be two hours prior to the meeting at some locations, and an hour at the smaller communities. And then for about an hour or two, the plan will be presented to the public,” he says.

Comments will be collected during the meetings.

The plan calls for three large, expensive road projects. One would run north from Juneau and another would cross Baranof Island from Sitka. The third would link Kake and Petersburg. All would end at new ferry terminals.

The transportation plan also calls for building up to two new ferries and retiring three old ones. It also includes an airport for Angoon.

Woodrow says presenters will talk about projects planned for each community.

“We’ll also talk about the region as a whole because all the communities in Southeast are connected in one way or another. So it’s important to talk about how we can keep these communities connected and also what we have planned for their community and specifics,” he says.

The meetings begin Aug. 6 in Juneau. They end Sept. 10 in Haines. Sessions will also be held in Angoon, Petersburg, Ketchikan, Sitka, Kake and Skagway.

Woodrow suggests reading the transportation plan before attending a meeting.

Read an in-depth story on what the plan recommends.

Managers of Juneau’s most popular tourist attraction say they’re planning for a more sustainable facility, even as the very object of many a visitors’ fascination continues retreating at a faster rate because of climate change.

Most of the $415,000 dollars for drafting a master plan for the U.S. Forest Service’s Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center comes from the Federal Highway Administration. The plan may address everything from Glacier Spur Road access to improving parking, culverts, trails and other outdoor areas, and even heat loss from the large, inefficient windows at the Visitor Center.

Visitor Center Director John Neary briefly explained the plan during a press conference Tuesday about potential impacts to the Alaska tourism industry from climate change.

“It seems like a no-brainer to me,” Neary said.

We have people coming on cruise ships that are belching emissions that are contributing (to climate change), and they get on diesel buses that are belching emissions, and they land at the glacier, and get off, and they see this glacier, and they’re not making the connection between everything they’ve just done and what they’re seeing before them.”

Neary went into more detail during an interview with KTOO immediately after the teleconferenced presentation. He’s open to ideas such as reconstruction of a Nugget Creek hydroelectric project that served miners a century ago, closing off the end of Glacier Spur Road and using an electric circulator or tram to transport visitors from a parking lot to the Center, and offering incentives for tour companies to electrify their bus fleet.

Such as, if we were to provide plug in stations for those buses with electricity at competitive rates, and with those stations offering the best parking spot that is available.”

Neary points out that the Mendenhall Glacier is the most popular tourism destination with 450,000 visitors, or almost half of the total number of cruise ship passengers that visit Juneau each year. Of that number, about 10,000 visitors to the glacier are locals. He also said companies can’t sell trips to other destinations in Juneau (like the DIPAC hatchery, for example) unless the Mendenhall Glacier is included in the package.

Neary admits that achieving zero-net energy and zero-net waste at the Visitor Center, or entirely eliminating carbon emissions would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. But that’s not the ultimate goal anyway. He said their job as interpreters is about making that link, or connecting people to the landscape in a way that they never had thought about before.

We’re not making the fact that ‘You are the cause of the retreating glacier. You and everyone else.’ We all collectively need to address this. And a starting point would be right here at this Visitor Center.”

He hopes that visitors will then go home, start a discussion, and take action in their own community.

Neary said they’ll finish the plan and have priorities identified by next spring. Implementation of the plan, however, may take years and a lot more funding.

Friday was a big day for the Alaska State Archives. They officially took custody of 3,000 cubic feet of records and other documents from the National Archives in Anchorage.

State Archivist Dean Dawson said all of the records appear to be in good shape and are stored in acid-free file folders and boxes.

Twelve-hundred records are from the Alaska Railroad.

“It might include train list of stoppages,” Dawson said. “It might be we picked up five tons of coal from Healy, for example. Some of those are just garden variety records that make the trains run on time. Others, for example would go back to the early teens – a hundred years ago – and document why certain decisions were made regarding routes, regarding services, and so forth.”

The records will be catalogued and appraised over the next year, and those that don’t have permanent archival value might be offered back to the Alaska Railroad.

Dawson said the Alaska Court System will help appraise and catalog the 1,800 Alaska territorial court records dating as far back as 1884. The records could be accessible to researchers and historians in about a month.

“The Alaska Territorial Court records are indisputably the most important Territorial records we have in terms of access, in terms of value,” Dawson said. “We get more requests for the Territorial records than we do other group of records as they document what local communities did in terms of what their processes were to administer local government.”

The National Archives and Records Administration facility in Anchorage closed in June. The railroad and most of the Alaska Territorial Court records will stay in Alaska, and the rest will be  sent to Seattle as a part of a larger effort to reduce costs and consolidate facilities around the country.

Beginning August 4th, the records will arrive in Juneau in three 40-foot containers.

They will be stored in the SLAM vault, or the State Libraries Archives and Museum that is under construction in downtown Juneau. Part of the storage space for artifacts and records has already been completed by the contractor and turned over to state officials. So, the NARA materials can be placed there.

“We’re really thankful to the National Archives for this generous donation,” Dawson said. “We think it’s best for Alaskans. We think it’s best for the history community and all users of archives.”

Dawson also expressed appreciation to the Office of the Governor and the Alaska Court System for helping with the transfer.

Meanwhile, asbestos abatement of the current Alaska State Museum is underway. The old building will be demolished next month and then work will start on the rest of SLAM.

 

 

Starting now, sections of state highways throughout Southeast Alaska will require drivers to turn their headlights on at all times, even during the day. It’s a safety measure that the Alaska Department of Transportation already requires further north, but just introduced in Southeast, according to DOT spokesman Jeremy Woodrow.

“There’s been several highway corridors that were identified as areas where, if we added these new headlights-on-at-all-times signs, that could benefit motorists by reducing crash rates,” he said.

Woodrow said that studies show enforcing the rule can reduce crash rates by 7 to 15 percent, by increasing the visibility of oncoming vehicles.

He noted that it’s already a requirement in neighboring Canada, and other northern-hemisphere countries.

“The main reason is because of where we’re located in the hemisphere, the angle of the sun often can play tricks on drivers’ eyes,” he said. “It’s helpful to have those headlights to alert motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians that a vehicle in oncoming.”

Many newer vehicles have running lights, which means the headlights are on whenever the car is running. Even if the running lights are somewhat less bright than nighttime headlights, Woodrow said that counts. For older cars, though, the drivers will have to remember to turn their lights on.

“It really isn’t meant to be a gotcha campaign. The main purpose is to raise awareness, increase safety,” he said. “We’ve been talking with the state troopers, and they said that most of the time, this will be enforced as a ‘turn your lights on’ type of deal.”

Portions of roadway in Ketchikan, Prince of Wales Island, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau and Haines have been chosen for the new rule.

In Ketchikan, the areas affected are on North and South Tongass Highways. On Prince of Wales Island, the road chosen for the rule is the Klawock-Hollis Highway from Port St. Nicholas Road to the Hollis Ferry Terminal.

Update 9:45 p.m.

A tourist train derailed Wednesday afternoon north of Skagway, and initial reports suggest some passengers received minor injuries.

White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad President John Finlayson says the company is investigating the cause of the derailment. He told KHNS radio that he did not want to comment on any injuries while passengers were being treated. The company runs scenic train tours between Skagway and Carcross, Yukon.

Coast Guard Spokesman Kip Wadlow says Air Station Sitka helicopters were put on standby to assist, but were not called out. Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau was notified and went into incident command about 3:45 p.m., according to spokesman Jim Strader. Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Strader says Bartlett received notification to stand down.

Skagway municipal officials and the Skagway fire and police departments referred all questions about the incident to White Pass.

Skagway Tourism Director Buckwheat Donahue says he was told the incident took place near Summit Lake along the border with Canada. He also says he was told by White Pass representatives that trains were cancelled the rest the day on Wednesday and possibly part of Thursday.

The railroad was built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. Now it serves as one of Skagway’s primary scenic attractions for visitors.

Original post 5 p.m. Wednesday

A White Pass & Yukon Route tourist train derailed north of Skagway Wednesday afternoon, though early reports suggest there were no serious injuries.

Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau was notified and went into incident command about 3:45 p.m., according to spokesman Jim Strader. He says the initial report indicated about 25 injured people, but that was soon downgraded and the hospital was told to expect between nine and 12 mobile, noncritical victims. Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Strader says BRH received notification to stand down.

Coast Guard Spokesman Kip Wadlow says early reports suggested that nine people were ejected from the train.

According to Wadlow, Airlift Northwest is transporting medical personnel to the scene while Air Station Sitka and Guardian Flight were placed on standby.

This is a developing story. Check back for more details.