Transportation solutions are better use of LOT funds

Sandpoint is asking voters to maintain the 1% sales tax LOT to fund park projects and sidewalk construction. The city said the money raised from the 1% tax could be used as matching funds to compete for infrastructure dollars in a bill pending before Congress.

Parks and sidewalks will not compete well with interstate bridges, expanding ports, transit, tunnels, airports, water and sanitation infrastructure. Vital infrastructure will absorb funding from the infrastructure bill. Parks and sidewalks are things that, with political will, can be financed locally.

I propose that the LOT be used to fund a solution to the transportation disorder at Baldy Road / Boyer Ave / Burlington Northern Railway. A project to build a height difference (over / under passage) between vehicles and the railroad could very well compete with infrastructure funding and would be almost impossible to finance with local funds alone.

• Police, firefighters and EMS could access the northern part of town 24/7.

• Freight, industrial traffic and school buses would benefit

• As housing growth continues north of Baldy Mountain Road (U of I real estate development and others) there would be less congestion

• A plan has already been developed to launch the project

To start working on this transport solution, voters must reject this version of the LOT and vote “no” in November. Contact your city councilor and let them know that the necessary transportation solutions are a better use of LOT funds.

KODY VAN DYK

Sand point