re: U.S. 95 (was "pave paradise...")

["Kenton Bird" <kentonbird@hotmail.com>]

For those of you curious about why the state of Idaho wants to put a 
four-lane highway between the top of the Lewiston Hill and Moscow, here's a 
four-year-old column from Jim Fisher that gives some background.  (reposted 
to this list with Jim's permission).
***
Lewiston Tribune
Category: Opinion
Published: 05/31/1998
Page: 3F
Keywords: Highway construction
Four lanes from Moscow to Genesee for what, coyotes?
Byline: Jim Fisher

      Before the conservative members of Idaho's congressional
      delegation break their arms patting themselves on the back over
      Congress' new highway construction pork barrel, let one
      beneficiary of their largess call bull.
   That would be me. I drive U.S. Highway 95 between Moscow and
   Lewiston twice each work day, and I say turning the stretch from
   Moscow to Genesee into a four-lane thoroughfare is a thoroughgoing
   waste of money. The Moscow-Genesee section of 95 is one of the
   straightest pieces of Idaho's generally twisting north-south
   highway, and you can still usually drive it without passing anyone,
   or forcing anyone to pass you. Some mornings you will see more
   red-tailed hawks and coyotes than you will other drivers between
   the two towns. Other commuters I have talked with since news of our
   good fortune broke last weekend have used stronger words than mine.
   "Asinine" was the choice of one. Another wondered how long it had
   been since the "clowns" responsible for this appropriation had
   driven the road themselves. I would resent this kind of waste under
   any conditions, but when it comes from a Congress that has gone
   after the country's safety net for poor people and children as
   badly as this one has, it lays eggs under my skin. In general, I'm
   no critic of government investment in highways and other features
   of the nation's infrastructure. Or just plain government spending.
   As a big government guy, I have defended many of the programs
   Congress has trimmed or abolished since the Republicans took over
   in 1994. And yes, I figure many of those programs, like many
   private enterprises, harbor pockets of waste. Organizational
   efficiency and economy is found more in campaign boasts and annual
   reports than in real life. After all, how many of the people riding
   in the first-class compartment of airliners are doing so on their
   own nickels? Most of them are enjoying the involuntary generosity
   of either taxpayers or shareholders. But when an entire project is
   authorized without any need for it, big spending becomes big-time
   squandering. I recall when conservatives complained about liberals
   "throwing money" at problems without knowing whether that money
   would do any good. Here we have Congress throwing money at a
   nonproblem, ensuring that the money will be shot to hell. Sen. Dirk
   Kempthorne, the apparent author of this four-lane folly, says
   University of Idaho President Bob Hoover told him parents object to
   sending UI students out to drive home on a road as dangerous as
   U.S. 95. And I'm sure he did; I've heard Hoover say the same thing
   myself. But the stretches that still resemble the goat trail former
   Gov. Cecil Andrus once likened the road to lie elsewhere -- between
   Worley and Coeur d'Alene, say, or up the Little Salmon River south
   of Riggins. Even the more convoluted section south of Genesee to
   the top of Lewiston Hill, now home to two new passing lanes, is a
   much bigger problem than that from Genesee north. As I think about
   driving it on a four-lane road, I recall conversations I have had
   with city friends who wonder how I can venture out daily for such a
   commute during winter weather. "Sure, I have a handful of
   white-knuckle trips each year," I've told them, "but you are the
   ones dealing with crowded freeway traffic. Most days, I slip along
   on cruise control, enjoying vistas of the ever-changing Palouse,
   with occasional clear-day glimpses of the Wallowas to the south or
   the Hoodoos to the north. "And no, don't ask if I want to trade
   places. I'm the one who moved away from your city, remember." I
   suppose I'm pleased that the rush toward the Memorial Day recess
   coaxed Congress into a bipartisan compromise on the transportation
   legislation. Congress needs all the bipartisanship it can muster in
   these divisive days, even if it is made possible only by greasing
   each other with pork fat. And yes, I am glad that some of that
   money will be spent on different, worse sections of U.S Highway 95,
   and other places where it will do some good. But running a
   four-lane highway from Moscow to Genesee is the dumbest idea since
   Rep. Dan Burton shot a cantaloupe in his back yard to demonstrate
   how Vincent Foster was murdered. During this Memorial Day recess,
   Kempthorne and other members of the Idaho delegation need to leave
   their first-class plane seats, get behind the wheel of a car
   between Moscow and Genesee and ask themselves what on earth they
   were thinking of when they slipped this goodie beneath the tree. It
   sure as hell wasn't the Palouse.





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