Highway 95 Grim Highway It’S Not Affection That Leads Idaho Residents To Call U.S. Highway 95 The ‘Goat Trail.’ The Stretch That Connects North Idaho With The Rest Of The State Is A Violent Route, Two Lanes That Leave No Margin For Error. By The N

It’s a 538-mile stretch through God’s country.

U.S. Highway 95 rolls past golden wheat fields and snakes through narrow valleys cut by rivers clear as glass.

But amid all that beauty is death.

Last year, 35 people died in crashes along this mostly two-lane highway that stretches from Oregon to the Canadian border.

It was the highest death toll of the 1990s on a highway considered one of the most dangerous in the state.

Despite public outcry for more lanes and other improvements, efforts to get money have foundered in the Legislature for years.

Money may be coming from Congress, and state transportation officials say the highway is a priority, but no concrete plans exist to widen the most dangerous stretch of the highway.

“From my perspective, the road is basically too narrow and too winding in some sections,” said Idaho Transportation Board Chairman Chuck Winder. “You basically have a formula for accidents.”

From 1990 to 1999, 255 people died in 208 fatal collisions on Highway 95. So far, three people have died in three separate accidents this month.

Compared with other Idaho roads with similar lengths and traffic numbers, U.S. Highway 95 consistently has a higher accident rate.

And more accidents occur in Kootenai County than anywhere else, followed by Bonner County, state records show.

Safety experts say terrain is to blame. Drivers just don’t slow down enough on a road notorious for its perilous curves and hills.

“It’s a road made as safe as a road can be through that terrain,” said Joe Peagler, who works for the Idaho Office of Highway Safety in Boise. “It’s people going way too fast.”

The most common causes of accidents along Highway 95 from 1995 to 1998 were driver inattention and traveling too fast for conditions, transportation records show.

Although drivers may be the most to blame, many of them say the road’s two-lane design leaves people with no room to correct for mistakes.

“Sometimes you can’t see the traffic until it’s coming at you,” said Greg Raschke, 49, who lives north of Coeur d’Alene. “You’ve got no place to go. You either head left and hope the person doesn’t head into your lane or you go off to the right and deal with the elements.”

Raschke’s mother died in a Highway 95 wreck last year after veering off the road just north of state Highway 53.

Raschke, a motorcycle rider for more than 30 years, said he’s had his own share of close calls. Cars going too fast around sharp turns. Trucks veering over the center line. Drivers trying to pass cars where they shouldn’t.

Police who patrol the highway insist the effects of inattentive driving and speeding would be lessened if more lanes were added.

“It’s not the design of the roadway. It was designed well for its time. What we need is more lanes - four lanes north and south,” said Idaho State Police Lt. Curtis Exley, whose officers patrol the highway to the Canadian border. “The road doesn’t have all the lanes it needs, especially from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint to Bonners Ferry. With only one highway north and south, it gets pretty limited.”

Accident rates prove his point.

The Highway 95 accident rate is highest along the stretch from Kootenai County’s southern boundary to the northern edges of the Bonners Ferry city limits, according to a Spokesman-Review data analysis of Idaho’s traffic accidents.

Here is list of some of the deadliest locations from 1994 to 1998, according to an analysis by the Idaho Transportation Department:

Between Garwood Road and Bunco Road in Kootenai County, there were six fatal wrecks.

Between Lewiston and Moscow, there were eight fatal accidents.

On a five-mile stretch through Lapwai, there were four fatal wrecks.

Between Payette and Weiser, there were three fatal accidents.

Idaho transportation officials say more money for Highway 95 is on the way.

“I think we are very sensitive to it and people will see significant improvements,” Winder said.

The Transportation Board has approved $120 million for 25 projects in the Panhandle area during the next five years, said Barbara Babic, spokeswoman for the Transportation Department.

Projects include realigning and rebuilding a 21-mile stretch of Highway 95 from Mica to Worley and rebuilding 16 miles of the road from Highway 1 to Eastport over the next five years.

It also includes a major corridor study of Highway 95 through Coeur d’Alene that would plan for the next 20 years of growth.

“All along 95, the department and the Transportation Board have recognized the need for improving (it),” Babic said. “The needs always outstrip the funds.”

She and others are quick to point out that Highway 95 gets 40 percent of all money designated for state highways, even though it accounts for only 28 percent of Idaho’s total highway miles.

In 1999, Congress set aside $1.2 million for Highway 95 after calling it a high-priority corridor.

But that is just a plan. Congress still must approve federal transportation budgets each year. Idaho legislators also must approve their own state’s transportation budget annually.

“The sad part is the lack of investments is costing lives,” said Bob Bostwick, spokesman for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Highway 95 is the main thoroughfare through the reservation south of Coeur d’Alene.

The tribe has had conversations with state transportation officials, former governors and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

“Nothing is going to happen without movement in the Legislature,” Bostwick said.

And as the budget debates continue, accident victims and their family members wonder why more isn’t being done. They wonder how many deaths could be prevented with highway improvements.

“I’ve heard it’s been called Deadman’s Highway for 20 years,” said Vicki Treadwell, whose daughter died in a head-on accident near Worley last year. “There’s no reason for them to leave it that way.”

Her daughter and future son-in-law were killed by a drunken driver who crossed the center line near Worley just past a blind curve.

“I know it’s not the state’s fault. It was a drunk driver who killed my daughter,” Treadwell said.“But had they been able to see him coming, maybe they would have been able to avert it.”

This sidebar appeared with the story:

ABOUT THIS REPORT

Accident analysis

The Spokesman-Review analyzed computer records from thousands of traffic accidents kept by the Idaho Transportation Department.

The newspaper looked at all accidents from 1995 to 1998, not just those with injuries or fatalities. The department does not have complete records for accidents in 1999.

Accident rates for U.S. highways in Idaho are based on the number of accidents per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.