Alaska's Lack of Roads

Most of us have heard the old joke about cutting Alaska in two and making Texas the third-largest state. Extending that thought even further, at low tide you could cut Alaska into thirds and make Texas the fourth-largest state. There is a lot of land up here.

However, there are not a lot of roads serving all of that land. There are, in fact, fewer miles of road in Alaska that there are in Maryland, one of the smaller states. If you take into account that part of Alaska you can drive around, you have an area about the size of Oregon with vast distances between the roads.

With the exception of a tunnel to Whittier and the pipeline Haul Road (now the Dalton Highway) Alaska has not built a new road since opening the Parks Highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks more than 35 years ago. The Haul Road was built by industry; the Whittier road was delayed more than 26 years by environmentalists filing one frivolous lawsuit after another. On the latter we ended up with a one-lane tunnel that is shared with a train and the highest toll for driving 2.5 miles in the history of U.S. road building.

Alaskans and our guests are essentially restricted to a 35-year-old road system. To be sure, there is plenty to see from these roads, but there is so much more to Alaska that most people will never see because of the lack of access.