Last week we told you that work could begin on the Twin Falls alternate route by late summer or early fall.
Now the Idaho Transportation Department is continuing to plan for a possible third bridge across the Snake River Canyon.
In the year 2000 - the Idaho Transportation Department began a study to consider the best place for another Snake River crossing.
An ITD representative says they don't have enough money set aside to complete an environmental study - and the money for final construction isn't available in the foreseeable future.
Devin Rigby says, “But also the big picture funding-wise, too. We had to have something in place to do final construction to be able to fund and go through the environmental process.”
Rigby says the third bridge would cost about 140 million dollars to build.
The most workable location turns out to be 2400 east road in Twin Falls County - and 300 west road in Jerome County.
Connie Jones says, “This study shows that even in 2030, the bridge would only take seven to ten thousand trips a day. so it does not take the concentration off either the Perrine bridge or the Hansen bridge.”
Jones says that ITD hopes that Jerome and Twin Falls counties and their highway districts will include a third bridge in their long range planning.
An ITD board member says that Jerome County will have to build six or seven miles of new road - in contrast to only two more miles of road that Twin Falls County will need to build.
Gary Blick says, “If it happens in the next 20 to 30 years, it would be nice to not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars to procure a right of way so we could do the bridge.”