ITD focuses on Winter safety
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 13 years, 3 months AGO
SANDPOINT - The Idaho Transportation Department is clarifying its plans for winter highway maintenance in light of declining revenue and budget cuts.
The department said earlier this month that overnight snowplowing was expected to be suspended throughout most of the Panhandle except for Interstate 90 and the Coeur d'Alene area.
The shift from round-the-clock winter maintenance on highways in the five northern counties was influenced by declining budget allocations for overtime and the hiring of hourly employees.
The matter of funding overtime and hourly workers remains, although the department said this week it intends to keep highways clear through strategic use of resources and work shifts.
Barbara Babic, ITD's District 1 spokeswoman nighttime crews could plow lanes of travel overnight, leaving shoulder plowing and berm work for daytime crews. District 1 crews may also start shifts earlier in the morning to clear snow from overnight storms rather than plowing all night.
District 1 receives the most snowfall in the state is one of the few remaining districts which clear highways until they're bare and wet instead of leaving a snow floor, according to Babic.
The prospect of suspended overnight plowing created a furor among motorists. Some also used the issue as ammunition in political warfare against lawmakers.
District 1 Senator Shawn Keough said she received a number of emails from voters who accused her of fabricating a funding shortfall in order to increase taxes.
Keough was a member of a task force which developed a series of options aimed at overcoming ITD's funding woes. However, none of the options, which include raising the gas tax, have been implemented.
"Nothing much has changed in the economy since the task force met last year. The task force, the lieutenant governor and the governor continue to be reluctant to increase taxes when the economy has not gotten better," said Keough.
Meanwhile, the department is in the midst of a reorganization process which could wring out additional funding for highway maintenance and projects.
"They are in the middle of reorganizing the entire department to drive money down to the road, whether it's snowplowing or filling potholes. Some of this - at least in my mind anyway - is a realignment and a rearranging of positions within the department to try and get more folks on the front lines and less people at a desk someplace up the food chain," Keough said.
Babic said this winter's operations plan will become clearer in the coming weeks and no decisions are final so far.
Keough is optimistic that motorists will not see a difference in winter maintenance despite funding constraints.
"At this point, it doesn't sound like the traveling public will notice much difference from past years," she said.