I mentioned yesterday that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was in town on Tuesday for the groundbreaking of the latest phase of the North Spokane Corridor. Here is his account of his visit to Spokane from his ‘Fast Lane’ blog. And the good news is he didn’t air our pothole or bicyclists-versus-citycouncilman dirty laundry to the rest of the country. You the man Ray.
Ray LaHood Blogs About His Spokane Visit
According to WSDOT's website. The project began in 1946. There is no way the rest of this project will be done in 30 years. It is unfunded and our country is on the brink of going bankrupt while the most complex and expensive pieces of the freeway still have yet to be constructed.
That means this project will have gone on for 100 years. Wow!
Technically I guess construction could go on another 30 years, but there are a lot of groups working behind the scenes to make it happen a lot quicker. There are talks about creating a Transportation Benefit District (a vehicle registration tax) where 70% of what is raised would go directly toward funding the NSC. I'll be blogging in detail on that next week, as soon as I find time to go in depth on the subject.
The bottom line is that local lawmakers are trying to find new funding sources to move construction along a lot faster.