Patty: This project irked me when I was a VP at the railroad and at one point I was specifically told to lay off by the Governor via a railroad board member. This project got going completely politically and a couple of legislators from the valley did a lot of political extortion to get it supported, despite the fact that there were no facts to justify it except an opinion from a UAF professor whose main interest was a spur into the mining district in which he owned some claims and some people who thought that it would provide a few jobs in the Mat-Su. 

This project is like many we have seen in Alaska over the years. Someone gets the ear of a legislator whose district would benefit. That legislator has leverage (maybe he chairs the finance or budget committee) and money gets spent.