Idaho’s 95 freeway in doubt

BOISE – Lawmakers scaled back funding for the “Connecting Idaho” highway bonding plan Tuesday, angering Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and threatening progress on a new freeway from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint.

Chuck Winder, chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board, said the bonding plan approved by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee appears to shift millions from the Garwood-to-Sagle project on U.S. Highway 95 to a project in eastern Idaho that’s not even ready to go.

“To me that was a real surprise, that they took that much money and put it over to U.S. 30, because we can’t even use it there,” Winder said. “We’d rather spend it on Garwood to Sagle. Our hope is that it would be amended.”

Kempthorne said, “I’m very concerned that today’s vote by JFAC leaves a number of highway priorities without adequate funding. … This proposal raises questions about our future ability to address safety needs on our roads, improve highway efficiency for Idaho goods and commerce, and connect Idaho.”

The governor’s $1.2 billion bonding proposal, which he pushed the Legislature to approve last year, calls for major upgrades to accident-plagued Highway 95, the state’s longest north-south route, along with other routes throughout the state. The idea is to use Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicles, or GARVEE bonds, to borrow against future federal highway allocations. That would allow Idaho to do 30 years’ worth of major highway construction in the next 10 years.

Kempthorne originally asked for $1.6 billion in bonding, but lawmakers last year imposed caps that shrank the program to $1.2 billion. Now they must approve each round of bonding under the plan. The governor and transportation department asked for $218 million in bonding for the next two years; JFAC instead approved $200 million for the next three years.

“This is just the first step in what could be a long debate,” said Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint. “We’re still very much in the game and fighting for what we can get.”

She joined with Rep. Kathy Skippen, R-Emmett, to propose a $218 million plan matching the governor’s proposal, but it was voted down, 8-12. Senate Finance Chair Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, proposed a “compromise” plan at $200 million, and it carried on a 13-7 vote in the joint committee.

In addition to scaling back the overall cost, the proposal identified three projects for full funding for three years: U.S. Highway 95 from Worley to Setters, $45.6 million; I-84 from Caldwell to Meridian, $70 million; and U.S. Highway 30 from McCammon to Soda Springs, $65.6 million.

It also included preliminary engineering and right-of-way acquisition funding for three more projects: I-84 to south Emmett, $5 million; I-84 from Orchard to Isaac’s Canyon, $6.6 million; and Highway 95 from Garwood to Sagle, $3.4 million.

But the governor’s plan had proposed spending $45.2 million on the Garwood-to-Sagle project in the next two years for engineering and right-of-way acquisition. It also included the $45.6 million for Worley to Setters, which would allow that stretch, already partly built, to be completed.

The huge Garwood-to-Sagle project on Highway 95 is projected to cost $324.2 million by the time it’s done. The legislative plan puts only $3.4 million toward it, while steering $65.6 million to U.S. Highway 30 from McCammon to Soda Springs in eastern Idaho. Winder said only one project totaling about $29 million is ready to go there – the rest of the money couldn’t be spent there yet. “We would like to see that $36 million go to Garwood to Sagle,” he said.

The overall “Connecting Idaho” plan includes 13 major projects, but it requires approval from JFAC for each round of bonding, and this is the first. Cameron stressed that his plan doesn’t take any of the 13 projects off the list; the others still could be considered in future years.

Skippen objected to the idea of naming specific projects in the legislation. That should be left to the Idaho Transportation Board, she said, because it includes equal representation from all parts of the state. The Legislature, on the other hand, has more than a third of its members from the state’s two most-populated counties – Ada and Canyon.

Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, expressed a similar concern. “I have a lot of heartache that this Legislature would micromanage the projects and we would put the projects in an incredibly political light,” she said. “I think then we may not arrive at the best decisions, we may just arrive at the decisions where the votes are, and that’s not always the wisest one.”

Cameron responded, “I agree … we don’t want this to be a political process. My motion is not a political motion. There is not a drop of it for my district, not a drop of it for Magic Valley. … These are the projects that the department brought forward.” Cameron’s proposal specifies that the top projects are chosen based on safety, traffic volume and demand.

Keough said transportation officials told lawmakers that the three projects Cameron targeted for full funding were ready for construction. “The information from the department keeps changing,” she said.

Last year, Kempthorne vetoed eight unrelated bills to force lawmakers to approve the bonding plan, when they’d stalled it in committee.

The joint budget committee also rejected a proposal from Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, for a $274.7 million bonding plan, well in excess of the governor’s recommendation. That plan sought to jump-start a project to upgrade the badly congested freeway that cuts across the Treasure Valley in Ada and Canyon counties.