SANDPOINT — Idaho’s biggest single highway construction project just hit the halfway mark.

The Sand Creek Byway, which has been in the planning stages since the 1950s, will be ready for traffic in November, 2012, according to Ken Sorenson, the Idaho Transportation Department’s project leader.

The work on the nearly $100 million byway project has led to some staggering numbers so far.

As of this week, byway construction has used:

• 750,000 yards of material.

“At 12 yards a load, that is a lot of trips,” Sorenson said.

• 11,300 cubic yards of concrete.

• 600,000 pounds of rebar.

• 3.5 million pounds of steel.

• 1 mile of pipe.

• 510,000 cubic yards of fabric reinforcement. “Enough to cover all of Sandpoint,” he said.

• 250,000 truck trips.

The highly visible project draws stares from nearly every vantage point along the two-mile construction zone.

“People always ask about the bike paths because they can see them taking shape,” he told Sandpoint Rotarians on Wednesday. “The good news is most of that work is completed, the bad news is you won’t be able to ride and walk on them until the project is done for liability reasons.”

Sorenson said crews chase off numerous sightseers from the paths on Sundays when construction has stopped.

ITD has between 20-25 people working on the project right now and Parsons has 165 employees. There has been two job-related injuries including an accident on Tuesday.

Sorenson said the weather and historically low lake levels in the winter have kept the project on schedule.

“We have had 55 or so winters since the byway was planned and the lake level has been at its lowest the past two years,” he said. “We stayed out of the water and that really helped.”

Crews have just planted 60,000 willow trees along the project in what has been a busy summer at the byway.

There have been two tunnels constructed along the byway — one near the Cedar Street Bridge and one near the railroad tracks.

The sprinklers on the site run two to four hours a day to keep the wetland sod alive. Sorenson said it can take up to 18 months for the sod to take off.

One Rotarian was concerned about the condition of the bike path on the north end of the Long Bridge. Sorenson said he made the choice to keep the path open and hoped most people would put up with the portions of gravel along the path.