Category: North

Update: the project north of the SH-1 Junction will now start June 19 instead of June 12, and the project south of the SH-1 junction will now start June 21 instead of June 19. Check 511 for future schedule changes.

Two construction projects will start later this month on U.S. Highway 95 near Copeland.

The first project begins Monday, June 12, and will sealcoat about 10 miles north of the State Highway 1 Junction. Work will take about three weeks, with only one lane of the highway open during the day while crews are on site. All lanes will be open at night when crews are not on site, but the speed limit will remain reduced to prevent windshield damage from driving too quickly over rocks.

Another work zone will be set up on Monday, June 19, south of the SH-1 Junction to resurface seven miles. Crews will work a mix of daytime and nighttime shifts. Traffic will be reduced to one lane and controlled by a pilot car while workers are on site. Construction is expected to last about two months.

There will be about five miles between the work zones. No work is expected during the week of July 4.

Travelers are reminded to check 511.idaho.gov for delays from construction and other activities.

This summer 11 signals on U.S. Highway 95 in Coeur d’Alene and Hayden will be upgraded, with work set to start tonight.

Construction will occur Sunday night through Thursday night between 8 p.m./9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Weekend work is possible and will generally start later at night to minimize impacts.

The project will focus on one intersection at a time, with work scheduled to take about one week per intersection. The contractor will start upgrades tonight at the signals for the I-90 ramps and generally move north throughout the summer to the signal at Lancaster Road.

As each intersection receives repairs at night, the signal will be shut off, and the highway will be reduced to one lane. Traffic on all intersecting roadways will be controlled by flaggers, but by 5 a.m. the signal will be functioning normally.

Some intersections will experience more significant impacts. Construction will affect the below intersections both night and day. Traffic already on US-95 will not be able to turn left off the highway, and traffic on the side street will only be able to turn right onto the highway. Drivers needing to turn left off US-95 can follow posted detours or make a U-turn at the next intersection.

• Neider Avenue in late June
• Dalton Avenue in late June
• Hanley Avenue in mid-July
• Honeysuckle Avenue in late July
• Hayden Avenue in early August
• Wyoming Avenue in mid-August
• Lancaster Road in late August

Upgrades include many safety features, like pre-emption devices that will allow emergency services providers to trigger green lights when responding to calls or backup power that will ensure signals at the busiest intersections will stay lit during long outages.

“Over the last several years, we have seen extended power outages,” Project Manager Breanna Logerwell said. “When our signals lose power, they eventually go into flash mode, or each direction gets a flashing red or yellow light to stop or to yield. Some of these intersections see almost 60,000 vehicles a day, so that kind of stop-and-go situation creates significant congestion and can be a major safety concern if drivers don’t realize they’re not operating like normal.”

Many of the signals on US-95 have been in place more than 30 years, and the systems that detect traffic and send information to the signals have largely not been updated since before 2010.

“For those drivers who feel like the signal rotation skips them, this will solve that,” Logerwell said. “We’ll have the latest technology to detect traffic and optimize overall flow in the corridor.”

The project is expected to take about four months. A specialized consultant has been hired to develop a new timing plan for the signals after the upgrades are complete.

For live traffic impacts and to know the timing of construction at each intersection, visit 511.idaho.gov.

Construction will begin Tuesday, May 30, in Sandpoint to widen U.S. Highway 2 south of its interchange with U.S. Highway 95.

Crews will build another lane for southbound traffic between the interchange and the visitor center.

“Adding another lane will make the highway four lanes and consistent with other sections, removing the bottleneck drivers currently experience,” Project Manager Erica Aamodt said.

The project will also increase the clearance underneath the railroad bridge so that taller loads may pass underneath.

“US-2 serves as an alternate route for US-95, so increasing the clearance to the current standard of 17 feet will allow a greater range of commercial vehicles to pass through without difficulty,” Aamodt said.

Work will take until mid-November to complete. Drivers will be able to pass through the work zone with one lane in each direction but should still plan for congestion.

Drivers can download the 511 app or check 511.idaho.gov to stay ahead of traffic impacts on state highways and interstates.

On Monday, May 22, construction will start on U.S. Highway 95 near McArthur Lake to reconstruct the highway and adjust sharp curves.

Plans call for one mile of US-95 to be realigned to soften curves and for the small box culvert to be replaced with a longer bridge. The south end of the bridge will be shifted to the east approximately 50 feet, and crews will remove dirt and other material from underneath the bridge to provide better clearance for wildlife passage.

Additionally, more than one-half mile on each side of the highway will be fenced to help funnel wildlife to the bridge for a safe crossing within the project limits.

“In this half-mile stretch of highway, 51 wildlife mortalities have been documented in the past decade, with many more going unreported,” said Norm Merz, the Regional Wildlife Habitat Manager with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “The replacement of the box culvert with a bridge and funnel fencing will allow wildlife to access habitat on both sides of the highway while reducing the risk of auto-wildlife collisions.”

Safety improvements will take two years to complete. For the first month, flaggers will intermittently stop traffic on US-95 as crews remove the part of the existing highway. The contractor will also begin building a temporary two-lane road around the work zone to allow traffic to flow smoothly until construction is finished in the fall of 2024.

Drivers should check 511.idaho.gov before traveling to plan ahead for any delays from work zones.

Construction will begin Monday, May 1, to rebuild nearly eight miles of I-90 from the Big Creek Exit to the West Wallace Exit.

Next week crews will begin setting up the work zone, and by May 8, all traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction and shifted on to the westbound lanes so the eastbound lanes can be reconstructed this season.

The project includes replacing concrete sections, most of which dates back to the 1970s when I-90 was first built.

“The concrete is old and heavily deteriorated. In the design phase, we compared the cost of repaving with concrete versus rebuilding with asphalt and decided that asphalt was the most economical choice for this section, both for the short-term costs and long-term maintenance,” Project Manager Joey Sprague said.

At the start of construction the eastbound on- and off-ramps at the Silverton Interchange will close for several months. Drivers trying to access eastbound I-90 will need to use either Exit 57 in Osburn or Exit 61 in Wallace.

Once the work near Silverton is complete, the ramps will reopen and Exit 61 will be closed, so drivers will need to detour to Exit 62. Message boards will be posted in advance of any changes in access.

Later this summer, work will also shift about five miles to repave a short section of I-90 near the east end of the Wallace Viaduct.

The project will last two years. Construction in 2024 will include all lanes from the Big Creek Exit to Osburn and the westbound lanes from Osburn to Wallace.

Other work zones are already in place near Fourth of July Pass and in Kellogg.

“We are waiting to reconstruct the section between Big Creek and Osburn until next year after the Kellogg bridges are complete to give drivers a break in work zones,” Sprague said.

Drivers are reminded to check 511.idaho.gov before traveling to plan for delays from construction.

Construction will resume Monday on I-90 to resurface four miles east of Fourth of July Pass.

Crews will start preparing for all traffic to run on the eastbound set of lanes by adjusting striping and placing signage. During the first week of construction, drivers can expect one lane to be closed in the eastbound direction while crews are working.

More significant impacts will start the last week of April when all traffic will be shifted onto the eastbound set of lanes so that work can begin on the westbound set of lanes. Only one lane in each direction will be open. Repairs are expected to start first on westbound I-90 and then transition to installing new concrete barrier in the median to prevent head on-crashes.

Eastbound I-90 was the focus of work in 2022. The project is expected to be complete in October.

Travelers are encouraged to be aware of other work zones on I-90, like bridge replacements in Kellogg, and are advised to check 511.idaho.gov before driving.

Construction is expected to start Monday, April 17, to upgrade the intersection at State Highway 53 and Ramsey Road east of Rathdrum.

Crews will add right and left turn lanes on both roadways and will replace the existing temporary signal with a permanent one. Work is scheduled to take place through September with the highway reduced to one lane in each direction.

“Impacts will be fairly similar to what they are now,” Project Manager Megan Koski said. “Drivers will just need to plan extra time to get through the work zone.”

The existing temporary signal was installed in 2019 to help with congestion while traffic was detoured during the construction of the new interchange at SH-53 and US-95.

Traffic impacts at this work zone and another on SH-53 near Hauser are available at 511.idaho.gov.

Several projects this summer will widen and repave State Highway 53 from Hauser Lake Road to Rathdrum, with the first work zone of the season expected to start slowing down traffic on Monday, April 10.

“Many drivers take SH-53/Trent Avenue to commute back and forth between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene as an alternative to I-90, so we want drivers to plan extra time to get where they need to go,” Project Manager Steve Nettleton said.

Two lanes will remain open during construction, but once construction begins next week speed limits will be reduced and the lanes will be very narrow.

Drivers should be familiar with this work zone, as widening first began last year to add a center turn lane on the two-mile stretch starting near McGuire Road and continuing through Bruss Road.

Last year crews added temporary pavement to the south side of the highway to keep two lanes open during construction this year while they build the base of the new lane to the north. Crews will also reconstruct the existing two lanes of SH-53.

By the time construction ends in September, drivers can expect new right turn lanes and lighting at the intersections of McGuire Road, North Church Road, Bruss Road and Hauser Lake Road. An acceleration lane at Cloverleaf Road will help drivers get up to speed and merge with eastbound traffic.

Since this project overlaps with future plans to build an interchange at Pleasant View Road in 2028, minimal improvements will be constructed near the intersections of Pleasant View Road and Hauser Lake Road at this time.

“The goal of this project and future ones is to make the highway safer by providing turn lanes for drivers,” Nettleton said. “Drivers won’t have to be worried about being rear-ended as they wait to turn left off the highway.”

By late summer drivers will pass through another two work zones between Hauser Lake Road and Rathdrum. Other widening projects scheduled near the city in 2023 and 2024 and the state line in 2027.

For a list of projects this summer, visit itdprojects.org/sh53corridor.

Download a map of construction in 2023.

“Over the next few years, anyone who takes SH-53 will get used to seeing orange barrels,” Nettleton said.

The department also plans to fund a project at the next opportunity to build similar improvements to the four miles between Bruss Road and Latah Street. If funded, all of SH-53 would eventually be three lanes from the state line to Rathdrum.

Drivers are encouraged to check live traffic conditions at 511.idaho.gov or download the new 511 app released in January.

Construction will begin Wednesday, April 5, to widen U.S. Highway 95 in Coeur d’Alene north of the Spokane River Bridge to increase traffic flow.

Work will last for four months, and traffic will only have one lane in each direction to get through the work zone. Drivers should plan extra time to travel on US-95 or head downtown.

The highway currently features one lane in each direction in the area, with a sharp corner near the intersection with Lincoln Way and Walnut Avenue. Work will remove the concrete median in the center of that intersection so additional through and turn lanes can be built.

“This project will end near the turn off to go downtown and the Spokane River Bridge,” Project Manager Edward Cabale said. “All of the major intersections in this short section will remain the same, except near Lincoln Way and Walnut Avenue.”

During construction drivers will not be able to access the highway from Lincoln Way or Walnut Avenue. After construction a thin concrete curb will separate northbound and southbound traffic on US-95 at the curve and change how drivers will access the two side streets:

• Northbound drivers on US-95 will be able to access both streets.
• Southbound drivers on US-95 will no longer have access to either street.
• Drivers on Walnut Avenue will only be able to turn right on to the highway and will not be able to access Lincoln Way.
• Drivers on Lincoln Way will not be able to turn on to the highway and will only be able to turn right at Walnut Avenue.

This design was developed with the City of Coeur d’Alene and public feedback from open houses in 2018 to reduce confusion at the intersection. These changes will go into effect immediately once construction starts.

View the new design here.

“The current layout of the intersection allows highway traffic to flow freely but all other movements function like a three-way stop,” Cabale said. “Simplifying this intersection will make it safer and easier to navigate.”

The existing center turn lane will be extended through Linden Avenue to help with the changes at this intersection as well as access to businesses.

Traffic impacts for this project and others are available 24/7 at 511.idaho.gov.