Transportation

Era Aviation has resumed some limited service in Alaska after the commuter airline grounded 12 airplanes over the weekend.

Airline spokesman Steve Smith says flights Monday morning were being routed by dispatchers to provide service to those most affected by the weekend grounding.

The planes were grounded after Federal Aviation Administration officers determined cockpit voice recorders were out-of-date and needed to be upgraded. Era says high winds also affected some flights in Southcentral Alaska.

Some passengers were put up in Anchorage hotels or on other carriers to continue their flights. Era serves a number of Alaska communities.

The federal investigation stems from an incident this month when an Era plane traveling from Anchorage to Homer dropped 5,000 feet before pilots regained control.

Are you an air taxi pilot or commuter operator? The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health wants to hear from you.

A NIOSH Aviation Safety Program researcher will be in Juneau Friday and Saturday to hear from pilots about fatigue.

Mary O’Connor has been talking with Part 135 pilots around the state about their experiences and methods to combat fatigue. She’ll be in Juneau to conduct more interviews.

“We are not expecting our study to result in regulations, but what we would like to do is identify if there is a problem, prioritize areas for interventions and work with the operators and pilots to develop appropriate interventions, things that would for Part 135 operators in Alaska, specifically,” O’Connor says.

NIOSH is a division of the Centers for Disease Control and has conducted fatigue prevention research on a national level in the nursing, trucking, mining and retail industries. The Alaska pilot study is a three-year program and the first to focus on the air taxi / commuter segment of aviation.

“Because of the occupational implications for fatigue, not just in pilots as an occupation but because their passengers may also be workers, they may be traveling to their work place, or they may be working in the airplane, such as a tour guide or a fish spotter,” she says. “Alaska’s quite different in the uses of aviation compared to the lower 48.”

O’Connor says pilot comments so far have run the gamut and the discussions are giving her high-quality data. No times are set for the Juneau conversations – instead, she’s willing to meet with pilots on their lunch or dinner breaks or whenever they have time.

“It would be great if there could be at least a couple of them together. We’re doing this in discussion groups with pilots because we’ve found that if they can speak with each other as well as with us, ideas can kind of bounce back and forth and grow,” she says.

Company managers are being interviewed individually, and the names of all those participating remain confidential, she says.

Pilots interested in participating, should call O’Connor at 907-229-6885.

The Juneau Assembly wants a say on the speed limit in the Auke Bay corridor. The panel last night (Monday) told state Transportation Department planners that the proposed speed limit – not a new roundabout – is a problem.

DOT proposes to build a circular intersection at Glacier Highway and the Back Loop Road. The project has gone through several iterations since DOT once proposed a controversial roundabout that would have eliminated DeHart’s store.

With the historic site – on Alaska standards – saved, the public is focusing on speed through the area.

The corridor is defined as an Urban Principal Arterial and it includes a U.S. Post Office, a city fire station, small businesses, Auke Bay Elementary School, and homes as well as major harbors.

Project consultant Nathan Leigh said the roundabout will be safer for pedestrians.

“As the roundabout goes around, it slows traffic down at that intersection,” Leigh said, “and there’s crosswalks at each leg of that, so as you’re crossing the roundabout you only have to look at one direction of traffic.”

The project includes other safety improvements, such as sidewalks on both sides of the road and improved access to the Auke Bay school and a school crossing.

DOT Manager Greg Lockwood said the speed limit will stay the same.

“We’re not changing the speed limit essentially; we’re designing to the current speed order. The 35-miles an hour that’s posted from Auke Lake to Harbor Drive doesn’t meet the current speed order. So what we’re doing on this project, we’re not changing any speed order we’re just designing the road to be safe at the speed order speed,” Lockwood said.

But much of the public that has already weighed in on the project – and most of those asking the Juneau Assembly to take a stand – believe that’s too fast.

Assembly member Carlton Smith – who used to live near the Auke Bay fire station – says a higher speed limit is not logical.

“The ferry workers that are going out, the ferry workers that are coming back, the mine workers changing shifts, plus the tour buses, I just don’t see the logic of doing anything more than 20 miles a hour through that entire area,” smith said. “But my perspective is having lived there.”

The highway engineers say it’s a balancing act to satisfy people driving out the road, pedestrians, bicyclists, and local businesses and residents.

State law requires the Department of Transportation consult with municipalities in determining safe speed limits and speed zones, and the Assembly has been lobbied heavily in recent months by people asking them to force the issue.

The Assembly last night directed city staff to draw up a formal resolution requesting a speed study in the Auke Bay corridor.

The project schedule calls for going out for bid on the Auke Bay Corridor improvements, with construction to start in the spring.

The Alaska Marine Highway has a new logo.

The blue-and-white “retro” image includes a ferry surrounded by a circle with the system’s name, plus an orange anniversary banner.

Officials say the shape is inspired by portholes of oceangoing vessels. The colors represent the ocean and waves ferries sail through.

Department of Transportation spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says it’s part of the upcoming celebration of the system’s 50th year.

“January 2013 will probably be when it starts. We’re going to be announcing the roll-out of the celebration coming up pretty soon here, within the next week or two,” he says.

Anchorage’s Bradley Reid and Associates created the new logo.

It replaces a more standard-looking, rectangular image that also shows a ferry and the system name.

The state of Alaska is working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to locate a site for a deep water port.

Alaska Senator Mark Begich says he plans to introduce legislation creating an Arctic Port Authority to facilitate Alaska’s future international shipping needs. Begich made the announcement over the weekend at Arctic Imperative Summit.

Senator Mark Begich is a strong supporter of greater ice breaking capacity in Alaska’s Arctic waters. Begich’s remarks during his talk at the Arctic Imperative Summit pointed to the cooperation of Nome area Sitnasuak Native Corporation and Vitus Marine in bringing life- giving fuel to Nome last winter.

“People back in Washington would say, what’s the latest, what’s happened, what’s going on? It was kind of like the Iditarod of the 21st century on ice. It was kind of an interesting change of events that brought people’s attention to what’s going on. But it also brought to the attention of the administration and others that we have limited icebreaking capacity,” Begich said.

That attention getting moment highlighted the needs of the Arctic for a while. Begich says it’s important to keep national focus on the Arctic

“Do we need a deep water port? Yes. Do we need additional ports? Yes. Better communications systems, weather satellites, helicopter hangers, pipeline activity to move what’s in the Chukchi and Beaufort to our overall pipeline that moves it down to Valdez,” Begich said.

He stressed that the Arctic is becoming a new destination for tourism, too. But lack of infrastructure is the challenge. And Begich says he’s going to do something about that.

“We are an Arctic nation. We need to have the resources to approach this new opportunity for us in the right way with the right infrastructure. When we get back, we’ve been working on a piece of legislation, we’ll introduce it in September. It will create the Arctic Port Authority which will design an area and create an opportunity for us to create an independent, semi – private, U.S. Arctic Deep Water Port Authority to plan, finance and build and maintain such a port. It will be critical for our oil and gas industry and it will also be critical for logistics and for support of the full utilization of what goes on in the Arctic,” Begich said.

In addition he said, the legislation would authorize the port authority to establish sub ports to serve as regional trans- shipment hubs to facilitate commerce in Arctic communities. Begich said the aim is to establish a network of ports to serve future shipping needs.

The Senator pointed out that Shell Oil Company’s plans for the coming years include 22 support vessels. Begich said that in three years, 200 vessels could be serving oil development alone.

Alaska Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, told the group that the state is working with the US Army corps of engineers on locating a site for a deep water port

“If Shell is successful in its exploration, you are going to see a need for developing small ports on the North Slope, for servicing that. So the very interesting question, and I think that the prospect of a port authority is a provocative question to look at, is how should we try to finance these ports together or separately. The question with any port is what throughput is going to pay the bill,” Treadwell said.

According to Treadwell, Trans Arctic shipping depends on cooperation among the international governments involved to help decision makers look at coordinated investment in ports and airports.

Poor advice from a car’s GPS unit led a man to drive off the ferry in Whittier and straight into the small boat harbor.

The man and his two dogs were fine, but a cat inside a carrier drowned.

The unnamed man had just arrived in Alaska from the Lower 48. He drove off the ferry but after about 400 feet, the GPS unit in the man’s car told him to make a hard right turn.

Whittier public safety director Dave Schofield says that was a misdirection, and it led the man down the ramp where people launch boats.

The car was fully submerged when a man jumped in the water and broke the window open, allowing the driver and his dogs to escape.