Intense pressure to get products to market prompted Eastern Washington businesses to rank unclogging Puget Sound highways as a close secondbehind avalanche-caused delays at Snoqualmie Passin their transportation-improvement priorities in a state study released last year.


The Washington state Department of Transportation says 25 percent of all truck traffic from Spokane goes to the central Puget Sound area, and delivery schedules are so tight at Costco Wholesale Corp. there that a farmer who ships vegetables from central Washington has a 15-minute window during which the shipment must be delivered.


Truck traffic on almost all of our major routes in the last 10 years has doubled, sometimes more than that, says Jerry Lenzi, DOTs eastern region administrator. Asked which routes are of particular concern, Lenzi says, Oh, I-5, I-90, U.S. 395, U.S. 97, U.S. 12, U.S. 195, capturing the scope of the problem. Yet, growing truck traffic is just one symptom of worsening road and rail congestion thats stressing freight-moving systems.


All-too-frequent avalanche closures on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Passwhich force Spokane hospitals to stock costly extra inventories of medicine and supplieswere the No. 1 concern of Eastern Washington businesspeople in the study. The Washington Legislature approved last session a $388 million package of avalanche-related improvements in the Snoqualmie Pass area, but respondents here also were concerned about the inability of secondary roads in northeastern Washington counties to carry products to market for as long as two months in the spring, when soggy ground leaves roads vulnerable to damage.


In other issues of keen concern here:


The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. rail track just west of Spokane, which branches in two to serve both Portland and Seattle, is projected to reach capacity in 2008 or 2009, says Lenzi. He says that in transportation-planning terms, thats like next week.


U.S. 95, in Idaho, carries so many more trucks than U.S. 395, in Eastern Washington, that officials have begun to mull a possible cutover from U.S. 95 south of Sandpoint to divert trucks from congested northern Coeur dAlene to the North Spokane Corridor.


Where the Canadians want to establish a new border crossings, U.S. topography is challenging.


The regions short-line railroads, eviscerated by shrinking tonnage, have a square-peg, round-hole inability to fit into the new business models of BNSF and Union Pacific Corp., which prefer to hook up to at least 110 rail cars at a time and haul them long distances, bypassing small towns.


Spokane International Airport and its passenger and air-cargo systems must be integrated into regional transportation planning, and while the barge system on the Columbia and Snake rivers carries a lot of cargo, maintenance dredging needs to be done so barges can carry full loads, Lenzi says. The last few years, they havent been able to run their barges full.


Scott Stokes, Idaho state Department of Transportation district engineer for the states five northern counties, says the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization is looking at a potential new alignment for the congested part of U.S. 95 in northern Coeur dAlene, but has proposed no alternative route so far. He had not heard talk about a cutover from U.S. 95 to the North Spokane Corridor, but says some truckers now turn from U.S. 95 onto state Route 53 then use Route 41 or Pleasant View Road to reach I-90.


Lenzi says the North Spokane Corridor will take trucks off of both Market and busy Division, which shoppers, moviegoers, and grandmothers with five grandkids share with big rigs. Yet, just $400 million of the $2.2 billion needed to complete the project has been appropriated so far, and other costly projects in the state are jockeying for limited funds. While the corridor will take 20 years to complete, DOT hopes to open part of it, between U.S. 2 and Francis, in early 2009.


Adding additional lanes to I-90 between Sullivan Road and the Idaho border and dealing with growing congestion on U.S. 195 south of Spokane also are critical issues, Lenzi says.


We need more capacity on I-90, he says. The truckers like what they get west of Sullivan. East of Sullivan, they get clunked up in traffic. DOT has received money to design a third lane on each leg of I-90 from Sullivan to the Idaho border, but has no right-of-way or construction money yet.


Housing development on U.S. 195 in Spokane threatens to congest that important freight corridor, Lenzi says. The first knee-jerk reaction is to put in stoplights and slow the traffic down. The alternative is to build interchanges. Yet, one interchange, at Cheney-Spokane Road, would cost in the ballpark of $15 million to $20 million. The state hopes to begin an interim project in 2007 or 2008.


Rail issues are even more knotty. Asian imports into the ports of Seattle and Tacoma are increasing BNSFs soaring tonnage so rapidly that by one measure, the railroad could run out of capacity on its Stevens Pass line in 18 months, Lenzi says. The imports are transported in containers, 70 percent of which BNSF hauls all the way to Chicago. Many go east from there.


BNSF is evaluating raising the height of its Stampede Pass tunnel so it could stack containers two high on trains and is looking at siding projects elsewhere to increase capacity. Still, Lenzi contends that BNSF eventually will have to double track across the state, east across Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, and farther or else youd just be pushing the chokepoints eastward.


An entire new track would be a huge, huge investment, beyond my comprehension, says Washington state Transportation Commission member and longtime Spokane resident Dale Stedman. Some think it couldnt happen.


Stedman says a first-ever state rail study ordered up by the Washington Legislature is due out next February or March. Asked whether BNSF is looking at a second track, spokesman Gus Melonas says, Talk to the state about rail planning. Asked whether BNSF is nearing capacity, he says, Were able to handle todays needs as well as future projections.


Melonas does say BNSF is sinking $50 million into its track system in the state this year and is aggressively hiring personnel, adding additional cars, adding track at its Seattle International Gateway ship loading and unloading facility, and moving ahead on a big siding project in the Columbia Gorge.


Forty-five BNSF trains a day now traverse the railroads Columbia Gorge route, up from 30 a decade ago, and 22 to 24 BNSF trains go over Stevens Pass a day, up from 20.


Stedman says BNSF and UP could set up a one-way rail loop in the Columbia Gorge, where the two railroads have tracks on different sides of the Columbia River, although competitive pressures have prevented them from doing that in the past. Lenzi says that in the bridging the valley project, BNSF and UP have agreed to use the same rail corridor between Spokane and Rathdrum, Idaho, so railroad and motor-vehicle grades can be separated along the entire route through work at just 15 places.


Another big rail development in this area is the Geiger Spur project, which would remove a rail line from Fairchild Air Force Base, where four gates must be opened each time a train comes through. That project would keep rail shipping available in the West Plains industrial areaas long as the state succeeds in its effort to buy the remaining track and operating rights of the Palouse River Coulee City Railroad, which includes a key rail link to BNSFs main line west of Cheney.


In an important recommendation in Eastern Washington, DOTs new Washington Transportation Plan, which will be given to the Legislature in January, will call for counties to identify roads that need to be brought up to winter-weather standards so trucks can carry products to market all year. Statewide, the bill for that would be $2.6 billion.


DOT is working on one such project on its own system. Its rebuilding Route 31 north of Metaline Falls, Wash., so trucks can carry lead and zinc concentrates from Teck Cominco Ltd.s Pend Oreille Mine to the companys Trail, British Columbia, smelter year-round, Lenzi says.


Where trucks cross the U.S.-Canadian border has been determined partly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys decision to make Eastport, Idaho, a secure, 24-hour crossing. Stokes says the state of Idaho has completed a $20 million improvement of U.S. 95 near the border, has rebuilt the bridge there, and is doing other work.


Lenzi says the Canadians would like to establish a new crossing south of Waneta, British Columbia, that would have gradual inclines on their side of the border, but on the U.S. side, youve got tough geometry, both horizontally and vertically. While there is no official estimate of what it would cost to fix that stretch, a quick estimate would be $20 million, and thats a lot of money, he says.


The bottom line for truckers is they want to avoid a long hill at Rossland, British Columbia, that has grades of 8 percent and more, Lenzi says.


Contact Richard Ripley at (509) 344-1261 or via e-mail at editor@spokanejournal.com.