A million dollar bus stop and hotel

By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard

I don’t care how you spin it, there is no justification for using $875,000 of precious taxpayers dollars to build a bus stop. A lousy bus stop!

The new bus stop located outside the Anchorage Museum illustrates the absurdity of the criteria politicians now employee when deciding what projects make for good use of taxpayer money.

I could care less this bus stop is 72 feet long, 9 feet wide and brightly lit. Don’t tell me about the fancy architects who designed it. So what if the sidewalks to and from it are heated. Big deal passengers waiting for their taxpayer subsidized rides can see exactly where their bus is via a high tech screen before it arrives.

All that is dramatically overshadowed by the plain, clear, and simple fact this is a bus stop, a damn bus stop and it cost hard working Americans $875,000.

People Mover estimates approximately 700 passengers a day will use the $875,000 bus stop. People Mover counts passengers twice, once in the morning and then again in the evening so the $875,000 bus stop will only see about 350 people a day. Only in America will we spend almost a million bucks of taxpayer money so a little more than 300 people can walk on heated sidewalks and see exactly where their bus is real time on a big fancy screen.

You would think for almost a million bucks the thing would at least be heated. It isn’t.

I don’t know about you but if I were going to build a million dollar structure in Alaska, I would at least want the thing heated. But officials say they can’t heat the thing because then the homeless move in.

But don’t worry about the homeless. We would never ask them to live in a lousy $875,000 bus stop. A plan is in the works to use taxpayer money to buy them their own Anchorage hotel.

A non-profit group wants to use your hard earned money to buy the Red Roof Inn in Fairview and make it a shelter for the homeless.

But the genesis behind this plan wants to let the drunkards keep drinking while staying there. Oh yeah, this is a good idea. A hotel where drunks stay for free and can drink while staying there. I wouldn’t imagine there would be much need for police to respond to this place.

Have you noticed there are no homeless in the Mat-Su Valley? Ever wonder why that is? It’s because there is no Beans Café and homeless shelters out there.

Most of these chronic homeless have made a conscious decision to drop out of society, live by their own rules, and just spend their lives getting drunk everyday. Opening up a hotel for drunks removes some of the consequences of their lifestyle choice. They can beg for boos during the day, eat healthy meals at Beans Café and other places, and soon they will have their own room in a hotel to enjoy the boos the bought after begging all day. This is the last thing the chronic drunks need.

But there is good news for the taxpayer when it comes to the “Drink All You Want” hotel. This scheme will only cost you a million. That’s right, taxpayers get an entire motel for only one million dollars. And guess what, unlike the million dollar bus stop where the homeless are not welcome, the hotel is heated.