City extends use of Bridge Street for bypass work

SANDPOINT — The city is allowing U.S. Highway 95 bypass contractors to use Bridge Street this spring and summer to preserve momentum on the re-routing project.

Mayor Gretchen Hellar said the city is granting permission to extend the use of Bridge Street through June 15 to keep work on the Sand Creek Byway moving at a steady clip.

“The longer this project lasts, the longer the disruption will be,” Hellar said.

The project’s contract prohibited the use of Bridge Street for construction purposes, but city officials agreed earlier this year to allow the use of the route until April 15 so work on the bypass would not slacken.

Under a judicial decree, the Idaho Transportation Department is forbidden from doing earth-disturbing work on projects in the Panhandle from mid-October to mid-April unless it obtains waivers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The consent decree has hampered the installation of a north/south haul road on the east side of Sand Creek, which threatened to halt progress on the $98 million project, according to ITD. The haul road would eliminate construction traffic on city streets.

The department was granted a waiver to work on the haul road, although it did not cover all of the work that is necessary, said ITD spokeswoman Barbara Babic.

“The waiver said, ‘You can go ahead and stabilize with rock.’ But in order to do that, there would have been quite a bit of excavation required and the waiver didn’t cover that,” said Babic.

Tim Davis, project manager for lead contractor Parsons RCI, said a number of erosion controls to corral and treat stormwater have to be installed at the north end of the project so material doesn’t wash directly into the creek.

Parsons hopes to have the controls installed and haul road ready for use by June 15.

“The best-case scenario is the second week of June,” Davis said during a construction update meeting on Thursday.

The North Idaho Community Action Network has been critical of the project’s reliance on Bridge Street. The route is heavily used by the public to gain access to the waterfront, and its use during construction smacks of poor planning and empty promises, NICAN asserts.

Liz Sedler, NICAN’s executive director, said ITD should have found alternative access points from the north long before the use of Bridge Street was even contemplated.

“They told the city over and over again all those years that they would not use Bridge Street,” Sedler added.

In granting permission for the continued use of Bridge Street, Hellar has proposed some conditions to mitigate impacts on local traffic and events, such as Lost in the ‘50s.

“They’re not going to get it without making sure that we get something in return,” she said.

Hellar proposes a prohibition against hauling on Saturdays and a requirement that affected city streets be swept clean during hauling operations. Construction work on Sundays is already prohibited.