Bypass options offer residents plenty of baloney

The recent proposal to solve Sandpoint's traffic problems by following a gopher hole under town is in the same class of thinking as the Sand Creek proposal favored by the Idaho Transportation Department. By failing to recognize and address the various traffic needs of the greater Sandpoint area, those proposals are obsolete from the day they were conceived.

It is imperative to recognize that by the ITD's own traffic studies, only slightly more than 10 percent of all vehicles approaching Sandpoint on US-95 continue on through without stopping. All the rest are destined for various locations in Sandpoint or west on US-2.

As a consequence, approximately 90 percent of all vehicles must negotiate the bottlenecks at the southeast and northeast corners of town (First and Superior and Fifth and Larch.) The traffic often backed up across Long Bridge will not be helped appreciably by a Sand Creek Bypass (or whatever euphemism you may wish use.)

Face it. Sandpoint is a destination, and the city's internal traffic problems must be responsibly addressed by the ITD In fact, the ITD is well aware that the Sand Creek route is seriously flawed. During the only true public hearing on the subject held about fifteen years ago at Bonner Mall, their District Engineer admitted that if the Sand Creek Bypass were built then, a new bypass would have to be started immediately on the west side. The informed citizens at that meeting gave the officials there such a bad time that the ITD never again held another true public meeting. After that, we have been treated to a series of "dog and pony shows" where a citizen could wander around to look at the exhibits and perhaps engage an attendant in a conversation, but at no time was a meaningful public discussion allowed to occur.

Going back about 50 years when the necessity of a Sandpoint bypass was first recognized, the ITD first proposed a route that started from Algoma Lake at the southern end, proceeded in a straight line down a gentle grade to the Pend Oreille River near Springy Point, crossed the river on a new bridge to the vicinity off Rocky Point, proceeded north to follow a route adjacent to the Great Northern tracks, and finally rejoin US-95 near Bronx Road.

This West Side Bypass has many advantages over any east side or through-town route. Important advantages include:

? It is a full half-mile shorter than the Sand Creek route.

? Through traffic can proceed uninterrupted, including vehicles destined for US-2 west.

? Traffic destined for Sandpoint can come into town on several arterials instead of just two.

? Since the majority of vehicles coming into Sandpoint are not destined for the downtown area, they can easily reach the schools, service and industrial areas, residences, and similar destinations.

? Those who are headed to the downtown area can easily enter from the west side and find parking without having to hassle First Avenue.

? The second bridge across the river would serve as a badly needed alternate during the times when either bridge would be closed due accidents or other causes.

? Since the properties along the west side route are relatively undeveloped, only a few structures there would have to be removed. The sales from ITD owned properties along Sand Creek would help compensate for the cost of using the west side route.

? Aesthetic and other considerations, which are topics for other discussions.

If the ITD had it right the first time, what happened? The answers are a sad and not very pretty chapter in Sandpoint's history.

First, many local merchants feared losing business from travelers in a hurry to get through town. They thought that congestion is good for business, not realizing that too much congestion discourages sales. They pointed to the horrible example of Ritzville's downtown drying up when I-90 bypassed them to the south. What they failed to realize was that Sandpoint was soon to change from a sleepy lumber town to the world-class destination that it has become.

Another disgruntled bunch was the real estate developers who were speculating on properties and saw a particular bypass route as either a threat to their investments or as an asset to be encouraged. Some were being protective of their properties near the Great Northern Railway. Others saw a bonanza in having the State build a main street for them through Ponderay. One developer approached the ITD to construct an off-ramp from the bypass that would benefit several properties that he was in the process of buying.

The third noisy group was the Ponderay merchants who saw the bypass as the means to direct shoppers from to the town's main street, bypassing Sandpoint's merchants along the way. Of course that would mean that US-95 would eventually become so cluttered that Ponderay too would someday become a candidate for a bypass.

Finally, the ITD may well see the Sand Creek Bypass as the cash cow that will keep their staff busy for many years, something like the weavers of the emperor's new clothes, and if the Sand Creek Bypass does get built, then they can busy themselves for another fifty years diddling with a West Side Bypass. The $20 million already spent would have gone a long way in constructing that ultimate bypass.

The ITD caved in and came up with a highway that didn't go up First Avenue, as some merchants would have liked, but along Sand Creek where travelers could see the rear ends of the stores they were bypassing. Maybe they could go a mile or two to the far end of town and double back, which is exactly what the ITD now has in mind.

From then on, the politics of the ITD and the locals got ugly.

Instead of building a new bridge crossing the river on the west side, the ITD replaced the existing Long Bridge, claiming "It had nothing to do with a Sand Creek Bypass."

In order to discredit any west side route, including their own original proposal, the ITD sent out their surveyors to stake out a false route through the front yards of homes along the Pine Street Loop, which naturally made the owners up there howling mad.

The Sandpoint City Council then seized on the Pine Street route as the only officially viable west side route and presented to the voters a stacked ballot for a straw vote. The choices were Sand Creek four-lane, Sand Creek two-lane, through-town couplet, West Side (Pine Street) and do nothing. Faced with such pseudo choices, responsible citizens could do little more than groan. The results of that ballot are still being pointed to as "The majority favors the Sand Creek Route."

The brouhaha over the Sand Creek Bypass has been going on for more than thirty years. During that time, people from across America have come to make Sandpoint their hometown. They have seen what freeways can do to communities elsewhere. Some remember that the state was forced to demolish a particularly ugly elevated monster along the San Francisco waterfront. They are disturbed at what they see going on here and are active in seeing to it that their officials do it right when it comes to building a bypass, one that will have a powerful impact, good or bad, on their community.

Yes, those huge tractor-semi trailer rigs crawling through town are a nuisance. However, we can and must put up with them until the ITD and the local officials recognize that a highway system through this wonderful community must well serve the transportation and aesthetic needs of the community and not the desires of a handful of land speculators, developers, and unenlightened merchants.

? Joseph Henry Wythe is an architect and planner.