Highway Advocate Seeks Help Project 395 Will Change Focus To State Money

The “Mother Teresa” of U.S. Highway 395, Loon Lake’s Teresa Waunch, is shifting her traffic-safety sights from the federal government to the state Legislature.

She’s called a public meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Loon Lake Elementary School to generate support as her Project 395 citizens group gets ready to go to Olympia in January.

State officials, including the entire 7th District legislative delegation, will be on hand to answer questions.

U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt and Sens. Slade Gorton and Patty Murray will send representatives. So will the Deer Park Economic Development Council, a Project 395 ally, Waunch said.

The tenacious Waunch decided three years ago that too many people had died on Highway 395 and made it her mission to improve the road. She set a goal of giving the highway - which has the highest percentage of truck traffic in the state - four lanes from Spokane to Kettle Falls.

“We went for federal dollars because that was the easiest way to get money and, of course, we had Tom Foley,” Waunch said.

She and about a half-dozen volunteers who call themselves Project 395 were instrumental in winning $3.9 million in federal money for turning and passing lanes. But the prospects for more federal money are bleak.

It’s still a long shot, but Waunch senses opportunity as the state Legislature prepares to convene early next year. Among other business, legislators will consider reallocating state motor vehicle excise tax receipts.

Waunch hopes to convince legislators that they should quit diverting 23 percent of the highway-oriented tax to the state general fund. Unless that happens or the Legislature increases the state gas tax to allow for inflation, “there will be no further improvements to this highway as far as I can see,” Waunch said.

, DataTimes