I-90 through Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene: one done, one digging, one still on paper

If you drive I-90 between Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene, you are driving through three projects at once. One is finished. One is in the middle of the dirt. One is still a drawing.

The finished one: the Post Falls interchange

The I-90 and Highway 41 interchange in Post Falls is now fully open, KXLY reported Oct. 26. It is a single-point urban interchange, the kind where every ramp meets at one traffic signal instead of three. Work began in August 2022. It was supposed to wrap up in 2025, but union strikes pushed it back a year, KXLY reported. The Idaho Transportation Department puts the construction cost at $78 million.

Safety was a big reason for it. ITD counted 297 crashes at the old interchange over the five years from 2012 to 2017, and two of them were fatal, KTVB reported.

The businesses around it paid for the wait. A gas station owner near the interchange told KXLY his gas sales dropped by more than half during construction. Back in 2023, the owner of Embers By The Green told KTVB business was strong until the work ramped up that July, and then it slowed down. This summer, the assistant manager at Capone's said the staff was ready for full access to come back, and a separate water project on Ponderosa Boulevard made getting in even harder.

Now the shops are waiting to see if customers come back. One Barbershop told KXLY it's already busier. Other owners told the station they are still waiting for the bump, and hope it comes once drivers get used to the new layout.

The one in the dirt: five miles of widening

From Highway 41 to US-95, ITD is widening I-90 from two lanes to four in each direction. Work started Aug. 11, 2025, and is planned to finish in 2029. It is the first construction project to come out of ITD's I-90 Corridor Study.

It is split into two contracts. Scarsella Bros. has the west half, about $66.5 million, covering the Highway 41 ramps, the Huetter rest area and the Huetter Road bridge. Degerstrom has the east half, about $60 million, covering the Northwest Boulevard ramps, the US-95 off-ramps and the Atlas Road and Prairie Trail bridges. With design and land, the Spokane Journal put the full cost at roughly $200 million to $210 million.

What drivers will see: ITD plans to keep two lanes open each way during the day. Westbound lanes from Huetter to Highway 41 moved to the south side in October and will stay there for a full year, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported. The Centennial Trail is closed between Northwest Boulevard and Atlas Road, with a detour on Riverstone Drive and the south side of Seltice Way. As of late October, ITD also planned Huetter Road and Atlas Road closures while crews tear down the old bridges over I-90. The Atlas bridge demolition has since been postponed with no new date, and both roads are open for now.

The one on paper: Coeur d'Alene's interchange at US-95

The next big piece is a new single-point interchange at I-90 and US-95, Exit 12. ITD's design widens I-90 from US-95 to Fourth Street and widens US-95 from Emma Avenue to Bosanko Avenue. The biggest change is at Appleway: US-95 would go up on a bridge, and Appleway would be lowered beneath it, so the two roads no longer meet.

ITD says traffic through the interchange is expected to double by 2045. At an October 2025 workshop with the Coeur d'Alene City Council, ITD project manager Joey Sprague said the US-95 and Appleway intersection is projected to fail within five years no matter what else gets built, according to the council minutes.

That bridge is the part Appleway businesses worry about most. Without a direct turn from US-95, drivers would have to loop around to reach shops on Appleway. City Councilor Dan Gookin questioned the cost and the lost access in early 2025, and people at council meetings and open houses raised the same fear, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported. Not every owner is against it. The CEO of Roger's Burgers told KHQ he expects more traffic to be funneled past his place on Government Way.

ITD's answer has been new side routes. The design now adds a west route that connects Appleway to southbound US-95 using Fruitland Lane and Haycraft Avenue, with a new signal at Fruitland and Appleway. For the east side, ITD asked the public at a November 2025 open house. 53% picked a new city road between Haycraft and Appleway, and 26% picked a new signal at Haycraft and Government Way. ITD's spokeswoman put the trade-off plainly earlier in 2025, the Press reported: Appleway businesses will feel the project, but doing nothing would hurt them with congestion.

The catch is money. The design is paid for, but ITD says construction funding for the US-95 interchange has not been identified yet. ITD had said construction could start as early as 2027. In May, the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization split the project in two: the interchange itself, with final design scheduled from June to December 2026, and the Appleway bridge work, which is still in environmental review.

The longer road

All of this is part of a bigger plan from the Washington line to 15th Street. Between Highway 41 and Ramsey Road, I-90 carried about 58,000 vehicles a day in 2022, and the forecast is 137,000 by 2045. ITD says it has already funded about $250 million for the corridor study, the widening and the US-95 design. The whole corridor is estimated at about $1 billion and 10 to 20 years of work, and the stretch from the state line to Highway 41 is on hold until there is money for it.

Got a business along I-90, Highway 41 or Appleway? Tell us how the construction has hit you. Every number in this story names its source below.