Highway 95

["Mark Miller" <mjmiller@moscow.com>]

All,

 

I have been watching the discussion on U.S. 95 for some time now.  I'm sure that I have missed some of the discussion, but I think that I have taken in enough to form some sort of personal outlook on the whole thing.  I have a question and a comment for this group.  Forgive me if either of these items have been covered in depth already.

 

1) Has anybody really given it any thought as to why this money was allocated for this project in the first place.  Pork like this usually doesn't get added to a bill without some sort of heavy constituent pressure.  Idaho Dept. of Law Enforcement, University of Idaho, Potlatch Corp., etc.  Anybody know of such pressure.  I don't really think that Dirk's ties to North Idaho are so strong that he would have done this on his own.

 

2) The topic of the deer population on the west end of Paradise Ridge really bothers me.  I was once on a road in, and I can't for the life of me remember which state, either Utah or Nevada and I counted dead deer by the 10's along a stretch of maybe 5 miles.  I hadn't given this much thought until now, but is obvious why the mortality level was so high there -- a fairly new four lane highway built through deer habitat.  The ironic bit of this trip for me was that it was at night and I also saw countless live deer.  I was scared to death for my own safety!  So it's a two way street when you invade this type of habitat.  The deer population on Paradise Ridge I'm sure is similar to this in concentration.

 

I've rambled on enough.  I commuted from Moscow to Lewiston every working day for the last five years and I am very much in favor of a major upgrade of this highway, but the more I view your comments the more puzzled I am about the best way to do it. 

 

I would like to hear more about the following:

    Western route

    Moscow bypass and where it might go (maybe through the Palouse Mall)

   

Thanks for listening,

Mark Miller