Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Highway 75 project plods ahead

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By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Another small step has been taken by the gargantuan federal highway bureaucracy toward releasing the first funds for the major valley-long improvement and widening of state Highway 75 between Ketchum and the junction with U.S. Highway 20 south of Bellevue.

The Idaho Transportation Department has received "legal sufficiency approval"—Washingtonese for approval of paperwork involved in the required environmental impact statement and subsequently the much-awaited record of decision that must be approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

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District 4 Environmental Manager Chuck Carnohan said the record of decision should be signed by May.

And unless Congress specifically acts to cancel initial funds now available for the project, District 4 Engineer Devil Rigby said, the state should begin spending some $22 million by the end of the year on planning and acquisition of rights-of-way and on small construction projects.

Costs of the Highway 75 project have soared since it was first planned—from some $100 million to an estimate made last October of about $187 million.

Completion of the multi-phase project is years away. Essentially, it calls for widening the highway to four lanes along a 27-mile stretch to improve traffic flow.