Bypass cost tops $144M

SANDPOINT - The total cost of the proposed U.S. Highway 95 bypass stands at $144.6 million.

The Idaho Transportation Department confirmed the overall project cost after opponents of the rerouting plan took issue with it being referred to as a $98 million project in media reports. That sum reflects the amount of the bid awarded to Parsons RCI to construct the proposed Sand Creek Byway.

The $144 million figure includes preliminary engineering by consultants (approximately $19 million), purchasing land (around $9 million), internal preliminary engineering (about $2.1 million) and assorted other costs.

"That is the total programmed amount. That's never been hidden or anything like that," said Barbara Babic, ITD's District 1 spokeswoman.

Babic said most of the total amount has already been paid out and funding is locked in for any of the foreseeable remaining costs.

Steve Potter, technical advisor for Citizens for the Sandpoint Tunnel, raised the issue of the overall cost.

"Just to hear people call it a '$98 million project' is not appropriate," said Potter, who obtained the latest overall cost through a series of e-mails to ITD.

The Idaho Transportation Board bristled at the amount of money being devoted to the project when it awarded the construction contract to Parsons RCI earlier in June.

Hefty increases in steel costs, a complex material hauling routine, environmental considerations and project modifications were cited as influencing factors in the project's escalating price during the transportation board meeting.

"I realize this is a very, very expensive project. Probably, as far as lane miles, the most expensive," District 1 board member Jim Coleman said at the time.

The North Idaho Community Action Network, which has two pending lawsuits against the project, contends "the numbers speak for themselves."

"The 2.1-mile project will cost about $68.8 million per mile. Is that the best use of taxpayer dollars? Moreover, the short- and long-term impacts of converting the waterfront to an elevated, noisy highway have never been disclosed by ITD," Liz Sedler, NICAN's executive director, said in a statement.

Sedler doubts many downtown businesses will be able survive the four- to five-year construction period and argues project consultants such as CH2M Hill and the Washington Division of URS Corp. stand to be the big winners in the bypass saga.

NICAN also maintains ITD's shortsightedness, as manifested by having to submit a second federal permit application for dredging and making various plan revisions, added to the cost.

Delays have been cited as yet another driving force in the project's expanding cost. State Rep. George Eskridge (R-Dover) has estimated that delays in obtaining regulatory approval was costing ITD approximately $11,000 a day.

Construction, meanwhile, was held up by an emergency injunction NICAN obtained through the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court later lifted the injunction, clearing the way for Parsons RCI to start construction.

Potter notes that one line item remains conspicuously absent from the budget figures he's examined.

"There's one thing that's not in there, by the way, and that's the legal bill," he said.