Unalaska, AK – Local truck drivers say that deteriorating road conditions in Unalaska are costing their companies tens of thousands of dollars a year in repairs and man-hours, and they want the city to do something about it.

That was the message of a well-attended town hall meeting at City Hall last night. City Manager Chris Hladick called the meeting in response to a letter sent to him two weeks ago and signed by local representatives of six transportation companies, American Seafoods and the local chapter of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The letter, which was written by American President Lines Dutch Harbor Operations Manager Brian Sewell, says that road conditions "are at best bone jarring and at worst dangerously unsafe" for truck drivers.

The areas of concern are Ballyhoo Road, East Point Road and Captains Bay Road, all of which are unpaved and heavily trafficked by trucks moving containers between docks. Horizon Lines Terminal Manager Mike Lynch said that conditions have worsened since the major storm that hit Unalaska a year ago, and his company's fleet has been damaged in ways he hasn't seen anywhere else.

"Leaf springs are falling apart on chassis, you've still got the safety concerns, and then you've got complaints from drivers because of their kidneys and backs," he said. "So this is extreme in some people's minds, and we're just needing some extra help here."

Lynch and others who were at the meeting said their biggest immediate concern is maintenance of the roads after normal business hours and on weekends, and they're asking the city to budget more money for overtime for grader operators. Hladick said that he'll ask for that, but that that's only part of the problem.

"We've got to stay within our budget, so I'm going to present options to the City Council to increase maintenance on the roads, and it's up to them to approve," he said. "The problem with the gravel roads, as everybody knows, is this time of year you go through freeze-thaw cycles. Sometimes when you grade the road, the road is frozen and it doesn't do much good."

Paving the roads in question would solve some of these problems, but Hladick said that finding money for that is going to be difficult. The city's most pressing road issue remains the replacement of the South Channel Bridge, which initially was estimated to cost $17 million. But the lowest contractor bid the city received for that project last week was $28 million, which means that the Alaska Department of Transportation is taking $6 million that was slated for upgrades for East Point Road and putting it into the bridge project instead.

Hladick is encouraging anyone else with road quality concerns to write letters to the city, so that he can present a more detailed case for more funding to the ADOT.