Let's get on with byway and end gridlock once and for all

Mr. Steven J. "The Tunnel" Potter has appeared on the scene from California. It appears he bought property at The Seasons at Sandpoint, which is located adjacent to the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks and to the not-as-close planned route of the Sandpoint Byway.

To avoid the noise of the byway he has touted a tunnel concept to derail the road. He says it's safer as a four-lane divided highway. Princess Di's death came in a French tunnel, four lanes, divided. Chapaquitic Teddy's Boston "Big Dig", huge overruns, killed a lady right after the opening. A Swiss-Italian tunnel fire killed dozens of motorists. A toxic chemical or gasoline spill or fire would trap everyone in the tunnel.

The Daily Bee (Feb. 23) shot down any basis for a tunnel. It seems the Panhandle State Bank's monolith won't have a new parking garage because of the high water table. So why put a tunnel underwater? (Shades of New Orleans.)

Besides the cost of only part of the tunnel route from the south entrance to Fifth Avenue is "about" the same of the byway (numbers from Steven J.) Doesn't do a thing to get through traffic out of town.

Then there are the minor problems of cost, property acquisition, dislocation/destruction of homes and businesses, rerouting traffic, absolute mess of the construction, well, you get the idea. This dim bulb idea is analogous to the idiots who buy next to the airport and then object to airplane noise.

For Jerry Clemons: Steven J. Potter is not on file for property assessment in your offices. Chances are excellent of his not having a vehicle registered in Idaho, not an Idaho driver's license or registered as a local voter. So why are we paying attention to an outsider without local standing who wants us redneck hicks to conform to the ways of the place he's escaping from?

Let's get on with the byway as planned by the experts and ameliorate the gridlock.

PETER D. HERAPER, M.D.

Sandpoint