Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Highway 75 costs leap toward $200 million


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Even before the first spade of earth is turned for expanding and improving state Highway 75 from Ketchum to south of Bellevue, the estimated cost is soaring toward double the original amount.

When costs were estimated in 2004, the Idaho Transportation Department calculated it to be around $103.7 million, including land acquisition and construction, according to ITD District 4 Environmental Manager Chuck Carnohan.

Now the cost is about $187 million and rising, Carnohan said Tuesday.

He said that although prices of land in Blaine County that might need to be acquired for rights of way seem to have stabilized, costs of other elements in the project—oil-based materials and concrete, for example—have jumped.

And with construction still well off into the future, Carnohan said the new, higher estimate made last October 2006 should be considered only temporary.

Meanwhile, he said the Federal Highway Administration's scheduled Record of Decision on the required Environmental Impact Statement is running late, and probably will not be completed until August. A project consultant, Diana Atkins, of Utah-based Parsons Brinckeroff Quade & Douglas, confirmed that the administration has asked for additional comments on several questions about the EIS before making a decision.

Carnohan said that before actual construction is under way, other aspects of the project would come into play—acquiring land along the 27-mile route and design engineering, to name two.

The Highway 75 project is not now included in Idaho's new GARVEE (Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicles) bond program, which authorizes highway projects against promises of federal reimbursement funds.

But Carnohan said funds for Highway 75 would not be authorized in any event until the EIS is completed and approved by Washington.




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