U.S. 95 freeway gets another chance

BOISE – Key legislators are working on changes to a statewide highway bonding program designed in part to shift an additional $36 million in funding to a new freeway between Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint.

“We shorted Garwood-to-Sagle, and we’re going to go back and make that correction,” said Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert.

House Appropriations Chair Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, said the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning will take up a new version of the plan for the first round of bonding. The new plan includes several changes, but Bell stressed that it still totals the same amount: $200 million.

“It’s $200 million; not a penny more,” she said.

The joint budget committee earlier approved a $200 million plan for the first phase of a multi-year bonding plan that limited the program to six projects, only three of which were fully funded. The giant project to convert congested U.S. Highway 95 from Garwood to Sagle into a four-lane freeway was allotted only $3.4 million for the next three years – though Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s original proposal called for spending $40 million on that project in the next two years.

Now, a compromise plan that JFAC will consider this morning would shift $36 million from an eastern Idaho project that state transportation officials said was overfunded in the original JFAC plan to the Garwood-to-Sagle project.

“We now have a clearer understanding from the department as to what money they could use and what money they couldn’t,” Cameron said.

Cameron said he heard loud and clear from North Idaho senators that the Highway 95 project – which eventually is projected to cost $324.2 million – is a top priority.

“Senators Keough, Jorgenson, Broadsword, Compton and Goedde have all made it very clear to me the importance of that project,” he said.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, the vice chair of JFAC, said, “The northerners have pressed to make certain that Garwood-to-Sagle stays on track.”

The bonding program, pushed through last year by the governor, calls for using 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.

The governor originally called for $1.6 billion in bonds, 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.

But that’s being rethought, Cameron said, and the new $200 million proposal is designed to cover 18 months – not three years.

“We will affirm this is an 18-month approach – not a 27-month approach,” Cameron said. “A future administration … will certainly be able to come back” and ask for more.

The compromise also would allow the Transportation Department more flexibility to shift money between the various projects if needed, Cameron said.

Keough said with the high cost of the North Idaho freeway project, it needs GARVEE bonding “to help us with getting that done in our lifetime.”

According to ITD statistics, Highway 95 north of Coeur d’Alene had more accidents from 1999 to 2004 than the entire stretch of the route south of Coeur d’Alene to southern Idaho. It also had the same number of serious injuries and nearly as many fatalities.

Chuck Winder, chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board, said, “I think obviously to get Garwood-to-Sagle in is absolutely essential.”

Mike Journee, press secretary for Kempthorne, said, “There have been discussions going on to try and find some middle ground.” But as of Tuesday, the governor hadn’t officially endorsed anything other than his original $218 million proposal for the first round of bonding, Journee said.

Cameron said the $200 million figure “seems to be the magic number – it gets people who were at $100 million up, and it’s the number House members will vote for and will pass.”

He added, “We should focus on the fact that we are moving forward with this project. … That’s a very positive step.”