Santorum’s ‘bridge to nowhere’ attacked by Romney

We all have things in our past that we may come to regret. For GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, odds are, his vote for the "Bridge to Nowhere" has to be one of them.

During last night's presidential debate, Santorum faced harsh criticism by candidate Mitt Romney for his 2005 vote to support the construction of a bridge in Alaska.

The bridge was made famous during the 2008 election. The proposed project, which according to Taxpayer.net, was estimated to have a final cost of $398 million, would replace the ferry that connects the small town of Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island. The island only has 50 residents.

The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities has said the purpose of the bridge was to improve services to the Ketchikan International Airport.

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Santorum is no stranger to criticism over his vote.

In a town hall meeting in December 2011, Santorum defended his vote saying" “People say that I voted for 'The Bridge to Nowhere.' I did. I went with the federalist argument, which is, 'Who am I in Pennsylvania to tell Alaska what their highway priorities should be?' You had a city that was separated from its airport, and of course in Alaska you have to travel by air, and you had to have a ferry. There were times when they couldn’t get across.”

According to the Huffington Post, the bridge project was allocated $225 million as part of a $286.5 billion highway bill in 2005. It noted that Santorum also voted against a later amendment to strip the funding, which failed 82-15.

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