In an attempt to tap into $700 million newly available from the federal government for important freight corridors and international border crossings, the state Department of Transportation is making a case to spend some of the money on improvements to U.S. 395.


A new planning document produced by the state says those improvements include sections of the long-envisioned north-south freeway through Spokaneplus revisions to Interstate 90s interchanges with Division, Lincoln, Maple, U.S. 195, U.S. 2, Geiger Road, Medical Lake, and Four Lakes.


While most of those interchange improvements arent scheduled until five, 10, or even 20 years from now, they involve hefty amounts of work, such as an estimated $240 million to revise on and off ramps at Maple, Jefferson, Cedar, Monroe, Lincoln, Browne, and Division, and a $44.5 million upgrade of the U.S. 195 interchange. The planning document lists another $44.5 million to add lanes to I-90 between Latah Creek and Liberty Park. All of the changes involve I-90 where it shares a common route with U.S. 395.


Congress identified U.S. 395 in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which it passed earlier this year, as a high-priority route for international shipment of freight. In that legislation, it established programs for national transportation corridor development and coordinated improvements at border crossings, and budgeted spending of $140 million a year for five years on those programs. State DOT officials, in their planning document, prepared a transportation-corridor and border infrastructure and management plan to lay out the applicable projects the state already had planned.


All the projects are already in our plan, says Al Gilson, spokesman for the state DOTs Eastern Region, based in Spokane. This is just a new format for federal requirements.


Separately, transportation funding approved in other federal legislation earlier this year provided money for an intelligent transportation system on U.S. 395, and those expenditures now have been authorized, says Gilson. The $900,000 project, to install a system of variable messaging signs and advisory radio broadcasts, will allow drivers to be informed of road and traffic conditions. The signs and radio advisory systems will be installed near Spokane, along approaches to U.S. 395s junctions with state routes 20 and 25, and near the Canadian border crossing at Laurier, Wash.


The states U.S. 395 planning document says upgrades to that corridor are part of efforts to improve the nations economic climate. It says more than 10 million tons of freight are shipped annually along U.S. 395 between Spokane and the Oregon border. In the other direction, between Spokane and Kettle Falls, Wash., the annual tonnage ranges from four million to 10 million tons, and north of Kettle Falls to the Canadian border about four million tons of freight are shipped annually on U.S. 395 and on state routes 25 and 31. Overall, the report says about 5,600 trucks carrying more than 100,000 tons of cargo valued at almost $140 million pass somewhere along the U.S. 395 corridor between Canada and Eastern Oregon on a typical weekday.


To move goods and people along the corridor most efficiently, the state DOT has selected three areas of focus: a north-south, limited-access freeway through Spokane that would get freight off local streets; widening of U.S. 395 from Spokane to Kettle Falls; and continued work to make the route a controlled-access highway between Pasco, Wash., and I-90.


The section of U.S. 395 from Spokane to the Canadian border is slated for about $649 million in improvements over the next 20 years, with much of that money going for the planned north-south freeway, which, as currently envisioned, would be built in the Market-Greene corridor here. DOT also calls for more lanes on U.S. 395 between the Division Street Y and Hastings Road and between Halfmoon Road and state Route 20.


Other upcoming U.S. 395 projects, which have been funded separately, also are listed in the planning document. They include $15 million of additional widening work on U.S. 395 north of the Little Spokane River bridge.