Moscow pedestrian underpass project earns top score in state

A proposed Moscow underpass project earned the highest score among 72 pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects in Idaho, all but guaranteeing the city will receive the nearly $500,000 Transportation Alternatives Program grant it requested for the roughly $1 million project.

“It’s the highest-scoring one, so as long as the federal government doesn’t completely collapse, they’re gonna get funded,” said Ryan McDaniel, Idaho Transportation Department TAP manager.

The pedestrian underpass would be constructed at South Main Street/U.S. Highway 95 between Sweet Avenue and the south couplet (near the Identity apartment complex) to improve the flow and safety of pedestrians using Paradise Path. The underpass would be similar to the one installed at the intersection of Styner and White avenues and State Highway 8 in Moscow. That underpass also received TAP funding.

The 72 proposals were scored on safety, mobility, economic opportunity and project readiness by a four-member TAP Recommendation Committee.

Moscow received a 75.8 score out of 88 potential points, edging a Nampa pathway project, which scored 75.3, for the top spot.

“The Safe Routes to School coordinator wrote a letter of support for the underpass, which made it the number one scoring application in the state,” McDaniel said. “Otherwise, they would have been, like, No. 5.”

The TAP Recommendation Committee recommended the underpass project be approved by the Idaho Transportation Board, Reed Hollinshead, ITD public information officer, said in an email. He wrote that it is among a group of projects in the process of being added to the Idaho Transportation Investment Program Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year.

McDaniel said the city of Moscow will be formally notified whether it received the grant Oct. 1.

The city asked for $499,643 from TAP, a federally-funded program administered by ITD. The city and Moscow Urban Renewal Agency would likely split the remaining $506,687 for the project if the grant application is approved. The project is scheduled to be constructed in fiscal year 2023-24.

Bill Belknap, Moscow deputy city supervisor of community planning and design, told the Moscow City Council Public Works/Finance Committee in January that pedestrians using Paradise Path use the busy South Main Street-Sweet Avenue intersection to cross the street before reentering the pathway, which can be unsafe.

The proposal is to install a path under the South Main Street bridge located between the south couplet intersection and Sweet Avenue, and connect it to Paradise Path, which picks up behind the brick University of Idaho entrance sign at the corner of Sweet Avenue and South Main Street. The proposed path would allow pedestrians using Paradise Path to avoid interacting with vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic at the South Main Street-Sweet Avenue intersection.

Similar to the Highway 8 underpass, Belknap said the proposed underpass is expected to be flooded about four days per year. Besides installing the underpass, Belknap said the project would likely include removing the old Highway 95 bridge, which is located on the west side of South Main Street between the south couplet and Sweet Avenue, and installing a sidewalk. The new sidewalk would run on the west side of South Main Street from the South Main Street-Sweet Avenue intersection to the south couplet intersection and then continue west to connect to the existing sidewalk near the Gritman Medical Center gravel parking lot.

Belknap said the old bridge does not provide a functional purpose.

When the south couplet was constructed in 1997, the Idaho Transportation Department anticipated removing the bridge but the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office determined the bridge may be considered historic, so ITD did not remove the structure.

The ISHPO issued a letter stating the bridge is no longer eligible for the National Register of Historic Places because of the level of deterioration. Belknap said he believes portions of the bridge’s guardrails can be salvaged and repurposed into a historic interpretative station along Paradise Path.

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.