ITD speeds up timeline for Long Bridge replacement with $200K for new study

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

A new study by the Idaho Transportation Department will begin the process of identifying possible replacements for the U.S. 95 “Long Bridge” south of Sandpoint.

According to an announcement Dec. 11, the ITD Board approved $200,000 to initiate the analysis, which is scheduled to kick off in 2025.

In 2021, ITD opened the pathway beneath the Long Bridge and announced improvements to U.S. 95 including the turnaround north of Bottle Bay Road and traffic signal in Sagle. At that time, department officials said further work on both the vehicle and pedestrian spans would be intended to bring them in line with a 100-year service life. For the pedestrian bridge, that wouldn’t be until 2056, and 2081 for the vehicle bridge.

As recently as October 2024, ITD said it would prioritize the ongoing U.S. 95 improvements — specifically the Dufort-Lakeshore project — over widening or other large-scale work on the bridge until closer to the end of those service lives. However, in the Dec. 11 announcement, officials indicated that the timeline has been shortened.

An aerial view of the Long Bridge. Photo courtesy of ITD.

“Up until now, we have been performing maintenance projects to delay replacing this expensive structure until it reached 100 years old,” District Engineer Damon Allen stated in the announcement. “But as we’ve looked to widen U.S. 95 south of town, we’ve heard from the public that they want us to look at this sooner rather than later.”

ITD Public Information Officer Heather McDaniel told the Reader that feedback from the separate U.S. 95 Dufort-Lakeshore project “centered around concerns with traffic volume and congestion at the bottleneck where that project would tie into the Long Bridge.”

The department stated in the announcement that past studies showed a preference for a single four-lane bridge featuring shoulders and a separated bike and pedestrian pathway in place of the current two-lane bridges.

The costs and schedule for staging such a large-scale project would be established in further analyses, but ITD put the estimated price tag for the northbound half of a new four-lane bridge — along with bike and pedestrian access — in the range of $225 million “at least.”

“This money [for the study] will allow staff to begin preliminary planning and pursue grant applications for design,” Allen stated.

Incoming Dist. 1 Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, told the Reader that based on what he learned during a meeting with ITD officials the week before the study announcement, “Any construction is years off, but it is forward progress to start with a study and develop a design concept.”

McDaniel also emphasized that, “While this is exciting news, it’s important to understand that there is still a long road ahead before construction of a new bridge can begin, including public outreach, procedural environmental evaluations and then, of course, identifying and securing the funding to design and build it.”

Woodward said it was his understanding that the vehicle bridge would continue to be used “well into the future,” though the pedestrian bridge “will most likely be replaced.”

ITD officials were also quick to underscore that while the timeframe for replacing the Long Bridge has been accelerated, it “doesn’t supersede efforts currently taking place for planning the expansion of U.S. 95 from Dufort Road to Lakeshore Drive through the Sagle corridor,” McDaniel said. “These two separate endeavors will move forward concurrently, with neither being dependent on the other for future progress.”