After years of waiting and promises, city and county officials learned Thursday that the $100 million-plus for expanding and improving state Highway 75 through the Wood River Valley won't be available, and the long-anticipated project is doomed for now without alternative funding.
The outlook, said Devin Rigby, District 4 engineer for the Idaho Transportation Department, "is pretty grim" for at least the next five years, wherein committed funds for highway projects will be poured into jobs in northern Idaho and around Boise and Twin Falls.
He estimated only about $5 million would be available for highway work in the entire district for each of the next five years.
Rigby broke the news during the regular meeting of the Wood River Regional Transportation Committee, whose members include officials of valley towns, Blaine County and state and federal agencies.
Almost immediately, a suggested alternative surfaced—a toll road.
Rigby said some study on a toll road had been conducted, but further information was needed before reporting to the committee at its next meeting.
A toll road, a long shot at best, would be a first for Idaho.
The planned Highway 75 project is some 25 miles long, extending from Ketchum to Timmerman Hill, at the junction of Highway 75 with east-west U.S. Highway 20. The plan has called for expanding the highway to four lanes through most of the Wood River Valley.
As originally envisioned, some stretches would be widened to eliminate bottlenecks that cause traffic backups during peak times, plus environmental, pedestrian and bicycling amenities.
Rigby told the Mountain Express after the meeting, "I've seen this one (the lost funding) coming for six to eight months."
Most of the $100 million-plus would have been produced through Idaho's sale of GARVEE (Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle) bonds, which would be reimbursed by annual federal payments.
But, Rigby said, the state transportation board "has come to understand the limitations" of the GARVEE funding, which is far less than thought when the GARVEE idea was unveiled by then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in his "Connecting Idaho" highway blueprint.
The same sort of dismal forecast was provided to the committee by Jimmi Sommer, from U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo's regional office. She said the Idaho congressional delegation is struggling to maintain the current funding level for Idaho.
Blaine County Commissioner Sarah Michael, a former chair of the transportation committee, said the news "is a bit shocking considering we thought we had the funding."
The committee's next meeting will include itemizing Highway 75 problems that require urgent remedy—such as the merge bottleneck north of the East Fork intersection and the narrowing of the road near St. Luke's Wood River Regional Medical Center.
