State’s Weak Link U.S. Highway 95 Is A ‘Lifeline’ For Idaho, A Test Of Ruggedness For Drivers

In 1872, the Idaho Territorial Legislature begged Congress to build a road linking the north and south.

The lack of a road endangered lives and stifled commerce, the lawmakers argued. Residents of northern counties had to travel “at very great inconvenience” through Washington and Oregon to reach their capital, Boise City.

When the North and South Highway finally opened in 1923, that merely marked the start of a campaign to improve it. Long since renamed U.S. Highway 95, it remains one of the deadliest routes in Idaho and a drag on the economy.

It’s a hot political topic now because:

North Idaho business people and a revived U.S. 95 Association are pushing for improvements, using the same arguments as those territorial legislators.

“This is more than asphalt, oil and gravel,” says the association’s Ron McMurray. “This is a lifeline.”

The latest state transportation report says the highway needs $335 million in improvements over the next decade.

The Surface Transportation Act is up for reauthorization in Congress. Sprawling, rural states such as Idaho will be battling high-population states for limited federal highway dollars.

North-south routes are getting unprecedented attention, thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the completion of the largely east-west interstate highway system.

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of U.S. 95 in linking such a large and rugged state. In fact, separatists who wanted North Idaho to be part of Washington or Montana fought the construction of a north-south road.

“There never was a stagecoach between north and south. There never was a steamboat,” says historian Carlos Schwantes. “The farthest south you could go by train was Grangeville; the farthest north was New Meadows. There always was that unbridged gap.”

There’s still no direct airline service and no train between Boise and the Panhandle, notes Chuck Winder, chairman of the Idaho Board of Transportation. Many drivers, following the lead of the pioneers, detour around Central Idaho via interstate highways in Oregon and Washington.

The transportation department says 129 of U.S. 95’s 538 miles of pavement need rebuilding.

Among the targeted areas: the shoulderless lanes south of Coeur d’Alene, where it’s hard to pass, but easy to find piles of wood chips dumped by tipping trucks.

The Idaho State Police recently assigned a trooper to the Plummer area because of the high accident rate there.

Moscow resident Mary Bowman just finished a 7,500-mile, 21-state trip and says that, when it comes to nerve-wracking rural roads, “I found nothing that compared with Highway 95 between here and Coeur d’Alene.”

Another bad spot is the hill north of Bonners Ferry, with its runaway truck ramps and 35-mph curves. Trucks cross the new bridge at the bottom only to bang their axles as they hit the pavement downtown.

That rattles the antique dishes at the Bonner County Museum, where director Eveline Ruhberg cites local sentiment: “If you drive straight on this highway, you’re drunk. If you weave around, you’re sober.”

The North Hill was scheduled to be fixed next year, says state police officer Brian Zimmerman, “but we heard last summer that the money was diverted to an off-ramp in Boise.”

U.S. 95 money is an issue that aggravates regional tensions.

John McHugh, who represents North Idaho on the state transportation board, hears constantly that highway dollars are being unfairly funneled south.

“Everybody thinks that Boise gets all of the money, but I haven’t been able to determine that they get more than their share,” McHugh says. “The population is there; the traffic is there.”

Everybody agrees there have been tremendous improvements in U.S. 95. The most dramatic came in the 1970s, when the tortuous switchbacks of White Bird Hill and the Lewiston Grade were transformed.

“It’s an interstate compared to what I first started driving on at age 17 or 18, on my way to the University of Idaho,” says Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

Promises to improve the road are a staple of state politics, Craig says.

“I don’t know how many governors have run on that issue. Eight or 10.”

Among them was Democrat Cecil Andrus. He was a legislator in the 1960s when he dubbed U.S. 95 the “goat trail” - a phrase still repeated in cafes and conference rooms.

When he became governor and appointed members to the transportation board, Andrus recalls, he had candid discussions with them about U.S. 95.

“I’d say, ‘It’s North Idaho’s turn.”’

Andrus proposed a statewide bond to pay for U.S. 95 improvements. That didn’t fly. Nor did the idea get off the ground in the Legislature when proposed this year by the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce.

Increases in the gas tax and vehicle registration fees were approved, but that will raise only an additional $24 million a year for road improvements statewide.

The state has budgeted $73 million over the next five years to add turn lanes, resurface and widen some stretches of U.S. 95 to the standard 12-foot lanes with 5-foot shoulders. A major bottleneck, the narrow Time Zone Bridge north of Riggins, is being replaced.

But the department has identified another $262 million worth of roadwork, including repairing or replacing about 30 obsolete bridges.

No one is sure the money will be there.

“Federal dollars are decreasing, not only in percentage but in amount. This year we took a $17 million cut,” says Winder. “That’s the bad news. The good news is, Highway 95 is a very high priority of the department and the transportation board.”

John Goedde of the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce wants to see U.S. 95 moved up on the national priority list.

He’s afraid the highway will be further relegated to backwater status by a proposal to designate three major truck routes between Canada and Mexico. One of those is Interstate 15 through Montana and southeastern Idaho.

North Idaho businesses want the road improved for both truckers and tourists - especially Canadians who, Goedde says, spend twice what other vacationers do.

Goedde hopes money will be earmarked for U.S. 95 when the Surface Transportation Act is reauthorized.

Sen. Dirk Kempthorne won’t advocate that. The Idaho Republican, a member of the Senate transportation subcommittee, thinks it’s wiser to fight for as much money as possible for states and then let them decide how to spend it.

“When you get authorization that earmarks a specific project, invariably Idaho does not do as well as more populated states,” says Kempthorne aide Mark Snider. “We don’t have the votes.”

Some motorists would rather limit the upgrading of U.S. 95. Among them is Rep. Jim Stoicheff, a Sandpoint Democrat who makes 15 round trips on the road every year.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful drive and I hate to see them make a superhighway out of it,” he says.

That’s not going to happen, says Mike Dolton. He and former Port of Lewiston manager Ron McMurray have revived the U.S. 95 Association to fight for money.

“You can’t turn it into an interstate. You’d be blowing up mountains,” says Dolton, who lives near the southern end of the highway. “Our goal has always been to bring it up to standards.”

Swift Transportation Co. announced last year that it would not send its trucks on U.S. 95 until the road is improved.

That decision, made by other companies with less fanfare, worries businesses up and down the highway. But their most effective pleas for construction dollars may be safety-related.

U.S. 95 accounts for 1 percent of Idaho’s main roads but 10 percent of its accidents, according to Goedde.

The Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce lists names of the deceased on the video it uses to lobby for improvements.

“I’ve been first on the scene quite a few times over the years where there’s been accidents,” says retired Gov. Andrus.

“And some of that makes your blood run cold.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Map of U.S. 95 route