If at first you don’t succeed, it’s not always better that you try, try again.
But try, try again is what we do well in Alaska. Well, not so successfully, but we are consistent in trying the patience of common sense and fiscal restraint.
For Alaskans, that could apply to the long-proposed, longingly dreamy North Slope natural gas pipeline project — a $39 billion quest in search of customers, partners, investors and lenders. Other than that, it has all the free political support it needs.
The state has poured about $1.5 billion into various unsuccessful iterations of the gas line project over the past 20 years, and still we spend money as we try, try again to fit a big fat round pipe into a tiny square hole of unfavorable economics in a highly competitive global gas market.
Next, after spending more than $180 million in state dollars on a lot of gravel and not much else, we keep trying to finish the half-baked, half-built Alaska Railroad 32-mile spur to tidewater at Port MacKenzie in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. And now, we try, try again with renewed political support from the governor, who would like to ride the train to reelection this fall.
It could cost maybe $200 million to finish the railroad job. That would buy miles more of gravel right of way, along with steel rails leading to an unused port with structural problems on Knik Arm in Cook Inlet. The venture would quickly derail if it were ever to ride on a real economics track instead of a political popularity line.
Meanwhile, a pair of Mat-Su legislators last week introduced a bill to move the state capital out of Juneau to Willow, a small community in the borough. For more than 40 years, borough residents have lusted after the development dollars and political attention they could gain by selfishly moving the capital. Never mind that countless past capital move efforts have failed, why not try one more time — it’s an election year, when trying to look good can win just as many votes as being good at the job.
Maybe an educationally humorous way to think of trying too hard at bad ideas is a story from 40 years ago.
A Grumman Widgeon aircraft — like a Goose, only smaller — operated by a small Southeast air charter outfit lost a tire just as the plane lifted off from the Wrangell airport. I mean lost, as in literally fell off the landing gear and rolled down the runway and into the underbrush. The pilot retracted the gear and set the amphibian plane down in the harbor. He got a ride back to the airport, determined to find the expensive tire they could not afford to lose.
Following the faith of try, try again, the pilot and his lead mechanic had an idea. They loaded another tire into the back of the company VW van, drove out to the runway, gunned the engine — as much as you could in a 1970s VW van — and sped down the asphalt just like the Widgeon about to reach liftoff speed.
At roughly the same spot they think the tire fell off the plane, they shrewdly tossed the second tire out of the speeding van. They figured it would (might) bounce in the same direction as the first tire, leading them to the missing rubber wheel.
Nope. Didn’t work. Tire No. 2 did not follow the same rolling path as Tire No. 1. Fortunately, they had managed to keep their eyes on the second tire and were able to bring it back to the hangar.
Alaska could learn a lesson: If at first you don’t succeed, a bad idea is not going to magically bounce a solution your way if you try again.
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