Above, an Anchorage, Alaska bus stop for which Sen. Ted Stevens secured $1.5 million in federal tax dollars to “improve.”

The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure. Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs would be nice.

“It is going to be a showpiece stop,” Wilson said.

He acknowledges the money has put him in an awkward position.

“We have a senator that gave us that money and I certainly won’t want to appear ungrateful,” he said. At the same time, he does not want the public to think the city is wasting the money. So “if it only takes us $500,000 to do it, that’s what we will spend.”

That is still five to 50 times the typical cost of bus stop improvements in Anchorage.

Ted Stevens is perenially the worst member of Congress when it comes to filling bills with pork for Alaska. Maybe it’s time the Republicans found someone to give him a primary challenge next time he’s up for reelection.

Thanks to Roman Malicki for the tip.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2005 at 11:08 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.