GROWTH: Death, taxes, traffic

Unless you are a developer, or someone who is putting financial gain ahead of the safety and the well-being of our community, who wouldn’t say it’s time to apply the brakes and take a closer look into this crazy out of control growth that’s happening all over Kootenai County?

As it stands now the traffic is likened to Boise, and emergency vehicles can’t get to where they need to without fighting their way through bumper to bumper traffic.

We watched an emergency vehicle leave the station at Ramsey and Kathleen trying to get to the intersection of I-90 and it took almost 15 minutes driving back and forth with traffic and into oncoming traffic before getting to the person in need. We see almost a quarter of a mile line of vehicles in turn lanes trying to go west on Prairie. Traffic backed up on Ramsey from Honeysuckle to Prairie and traffic on 95 waiting through two and sometimes three lights to get through an intersection, and this is after the tourist season is over and even before we realize the impact from the hundreds of homes and developments already approved and yet to be built. Isn’t it time to take a deep breath and look at this monster we are creating?

And while we’re on the subject, don’t think you can double our taxes to pay for this. Get the money from the developers who are profiting from all this growth. Many of them come from out of state, destroy neighborhoods, do their thing and leave us to live with the consequences.

They say if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

So how about a five-year moratorium to see what things will look like when all the “already approved” projects are built out, and in that five-year period work diligently on future infrastructure requirements like a bypass, additional traffic lanes, treatment facilities and the like and then see just how fast we want to grow.

If you feel this is a prudent approach, please join me by contacting the powers to be and make your thoughts be known, or join me while we sit in traffic and wait for another light to change.

JOSEPH C. GORE

Hayden