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Idaho Transportation
Department
Public Affairs Office
P.O. Box 7129
Boise, ID 83707
208.334.8005
Fax: 208.334.8563
Email


Governor's transportation initiative:
Connecting Idaho
(excerpt from State of the State Address, 1-10-05)

Tonight I'm announcing an extraordinary opportunity to enhance Idaho's highways, improve safety and expand commerce. It's a vision I call "Connecting Idaho."

Who would have thought that in our lifetime that we could be talking about a safe, multi-lane highway from the capital city, all the way to the Canadian border? This revolutionary idea of "Connecting Idaho" gets us a long way down that road, and includes long-awaited and much anticipated safety and highway improvements to each and every region of this state.

  • Up north, we fix the instant bottleneck on Highway 95 when you first enter Idaho from Canada
  • Then, from Sandpoint all the way to Coeur d'Alene - a four-lane freeway - and those four lanes continue south all the way to Worley on that heavily traveled portion of Highway 95.
  • We will finish construction on the decades old vision of a safe, multi-lane highway from Moscow down to Lewiston.
  • My plan is to eliminate dangerous curves and significantly realign hazardous stretches of 95, and we're going to restore critical riparian areas and environmentally sensitive habitat. ...
  • ... I'm proposing we fund a brand new 56-mile, four-lane divided highway through Indian Valley, a project that has been talked about for years. This will be a significant new artery to facilitate travel between north and south Idaho. It will also get many of the heavy trucks and commercial traffic off of Highway 55 in the most safe and efficient manner possible.

    This will enhance Highway 55 to become one of the premier, pristine, scenic by-ways anywhere in the world and improve the recreational experience for residents and visitors. ... In the Treasure Valley, there are solutions to the growing traffic concerns. But those solutions are years away and the congestion will only worsen unless we take advantage of the opportunity that is before us.
  • We can bring Highway 16 from Emmett all the way to Interstate 84 with a four-lane divided highway.
  • We can build six lanes between Caldwell and Meridian, upgrade existing interchanges and add new ones to improve safety and ease congestion.
  • We can add new lanes and replace all the interchanges from Orchard (Street) past Micron. ... We will issue revenue bonds for the projects, using what are commonly known as Garvee Bonds. The state will issue the bonds, and the principle, interest and other costs will be paid off by using future federal highway dollars.

This will have no impact on the state General Fund, nor our bond rating, and will still allow for construction and maintenance projects on the Idaho Transportation Department's priority list.

Over the course of the next 10 years, we're going to build three decades' worth of highways. I'm proposing we invest $1.6 billion, and we do it now.

It's time we stop talking and start building.

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