'Dis-connected Idaho' logic is bound to kill someone

Highway 95 is Idaho's north, south highway.

It is also a sign of how screwed up the priorities are in Boise. Call it "Dis-connecting Idaho."

Try to follow the logic.

A trip on Highway 95 from Sandpoint to Coeur d'Alene is a necessity. Anybody driving south from Sandpoint has to go through Coeur d'Alene to go anywhere.

Thousands of people travel that route for employment, education and because they must. This is not your father's Highway 95 when people occasionally use to travel to the big city for shopping. It's busy, dangerous and seriously overdue for safety upgrades.

Rumble strips are not the answer.

Gov. Kempthorne wants to leave a legacy as he departs Boise. He wants to see fewer people die on Idaho's international highway.

As a Harley-riding governor, he knows what it is like to stare at death through a plexiglass windshield. We applaud his foresight.

His $1.2 billion bonding proposal would put money into the important Sagle to Garwood project as well as many other deserving upgrades to a crumbling infrastructure.

Unfortunately, it looks like Kempthorne's plan is as dead as those crosses that dot Highway 95. You have seen the crosses — they denote death along Highway 95 and other highways. There are too many of them between here and Coeur d'Alene.

So instead of funding Highway 95 improvements, the chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board with the blessing of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has suggested those funds be used for a project in eastern Idaho that is not even ready to go.

Insert your own comment. We are too busy praying for all the families who will lose loved ones on Highway 95 because of a "Dis-connected Idaho."

David Keyes is publisher of the Bee.