Idaho Senate approves scaled-back highway funding

BOISE – At the urging of Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, the Idaho Senate on Tuesday approved an $82 million highway bonding plan for next year that largely funds major freeway projects in the Boise area.

Hammond said after the 28-6 vote, “We’re next in the pipeline – if I can get this done, then we can focus on getting those projects up north completed.”

The multiyear “Connecting Idaho” program includes the huge Garwood-to-Sagle freeway project on U.S. Highway 95 in North Idaho, though next year’s round of bonding would go largely to the state’s most congested corridor, the deteriorating freeway that connects Ada and Canyon counties, the state’s two largest-population counties.

Hammond wrote the compromise bill in the Legislature’s joint budget committee, down from Gov. Butch Otter’s proposal for $125 million in highway bonding next year.

The governor agreed to the lower amount because he moved one Treasure Valley interchange project off the bonding program to federal stimulus funding.

The Senate approval sends the bonding bill to the House, which on Tuesday delayed a vote on a proposed gas tax increase to fund road work. House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, said, “That’s good news because then we can bring it up alongside the fuel tax.”