Reading ITD's Seven-Year Plan (ITIP) and the 2026 Unfunded List

Every summer ITD publishes a thick PDF that decides which state highway projects get built in the next seven years. Most people never open it. Those who do often give up on the first page of abbreviations. This lesson is a reading guide. It explains what the Idaho Transportation Investment Program is, how the annual update works, how a project gets in, moves, or falls into the unfunded category, and how to read a project line. It uses the fiscal 2027 to 2033 program, approved in September 2026 after the Strategic Initiatives fund went to zero, as the worked case.

Facts here are current as of October 2026. The ITIP is rewritten every year, and the September 2027 version will replace this one. The links in this lesson point to the current documents; the method will still work on next year's.

This lesson builds on Lesson 4, which explains TECM, GARVEE and the Strategic Initiatives fund. If a term like "TECM" or "pay-as-you-go" is unfamiliar, read that lesson first.

What the ITIP is and what it is not

ITD's ITIP page describes the program as the department's plan of transportation projects for the next seven years, with priorities based on traffic volumes, crash data and public input. The approved fiscal 2027 to 2033 ITIP document is stamped "ITD Board Approved September 17, 2026." It covers highways, public transportation and aeronautics, and it includes projects sponsored by local governments that use federal money passed through ITD.

Three limits are worth keeping in mind:

• It is a funding plan, not a promise. The document says its listings are subject to revision for reasons such as funding, obligation limits, project scope, cost and policy changes. A project shown in 2030 can move to 2032 or out of the program entirely in next year's update.
• It is mostly about money ITD controls or passes through. Most county, city and highway district projects paid for with local money do not appear. In Ada and Canyon counties, for example, COMPASS's regional Transportation Improvement Program notes that ITD's ITIP and ACHD's five-year plan each cover projects not in the regional TIP. Lesson 6 covers highway district plans.
• Dollars are planning estimates. The document states that funds are in year-of-expenditure dollars assuming 2 percent annual inflation, that programming assumes 100 percent of federal obligation authority, and that "available" estimates include match. It also notes that federal fiscal 2026 was the last year of the 2021 federal transportation act; Lesson 7 covers what that means.

The ITIP and the STIP

Federal law requires each state to keep a Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Under 23 U.S.C. 135(g), the STIP must cover at least four years, must be updated at least every four years, must give the public and affected agencies a reasonable opportunity to comment, and may include a project only if full funding can reasonably be expected within the planned completion period. Projects in metropolitan areas must be developed in cooperation with the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) and must match the MPO's approved plan and TIP.

Idaho meets that requirement through the ITIP. ITD's Program Update Manual says the board-approved program is submitted to the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration as the recommended STIP, that final federal approval generally comes in December, and that a project must be in the STIP before obligation documents go to FHWA. Idaho's STIP covers seven years, more than the federal minimum. ITD's STIP page listed the fiscal 2026 to 2032 STIP as current in October 2026, with amendments numbered H1 (May 22, 2026) through H7 (September 21, 2026). The fiscal 2027 to 2033 version follows after federal review.

Between annual updates, the STIP changes through amendments and administrative modifications. ITD publishes its STIP modification process and a summary of amendments. Amendments are the formal changes, and ITD's STIP page says comments on them must be submitted in writing by email. If a project you are following changes cost or schedule in the middle of a year, the STIP amendment list is where it shows up.

The annual cycle

The Program Update Manual lays out the calendar for each update. Figure 1 shows the 2026 cycle that produced the fiscal 2027 to 2033 program, using dates from the manual and from board records.

A few details from the manual explain who has a seat at each step:

• ITD's six districts enter their candidate projects in the department's programming software and coordinate with MPOs in their areas.
• Statewide partners submit separately: aeronautics, public transportation, LHTAC (for local federal-aid projects), the Transportation Alternatives and ADA curb ramp programs, rail and COMPASS.
• An Urban Balancing Committee fills in its submittal at an April meeting.
• The department's Program Management Office merges everything and checks it before management review.

In 2026, the board voted at its June 16 and 17 meeting (resolution ITB26-32, passed unopposed according to the minutes) to release the draft for public comment starting in July. The comment window ran July 1 to 31. ITD's comment notice listed email (itipcomments@itd.idaho.gov), phone (208-334-8063) and mail options, and East Idaho News added that the draft could be browsed on an interactive map. The September board packet records that ITD received 689 statewide comments during the window; the June minutes note 426 comments the previous year. In August the board approved adding an I-84 Parma interchange (Exit 26) bridge project to the draft (resolution ITB26-49). The board approved the final program on September 17.

How a project gets in

The manual describes different selection rules for each program. That matters because "why isn't my project funded?" usually has a program-specific answer.

Program	How candidates are chosen (per the Program Update Manual)
Pavement preservation and restoration	ITD's pavement management system recommends sections by condition measures such as cracking indexes, roughness (IRI), rutting, faulting, age and friction. Districts make final selections.
Bridge preservation and restoration	A multi-objective process weighs condition, age, route, traffic and load restrictions. Restoration emphasizes structurally deficient, restricted and older bridges and deteriorated decks.
Safety (HSIP)	Projects must be crash-driven, fit the Strategic Highway Safety Plan, sit in a high or medium priority corridor, and show a benefit-cost ratio above 1.0 in a competitive process.
Capacity	Districts nominate. A review team scores benefit-cost, economic output and jobs over 20 years. No single project may take more than 30 percent of available funds.
TECM	Expansion projects in approved corridors, paid by direct-pay funds and bonds (see Lesson 4).
Planning, scoping and studies	Pre-design and pre-environmental work, about $8 million a year.
Early Development	Projects the board approves for development work before construction money is identified. Construction is not funded in this program.

Two practical lessons follow. First, a pavement or bridge project is mainly selected by condition data, so the best argument for one is data: photos, crash reports, a bridge's posted load limit. Second, capacity and TECM projects compete on benefit-cost and corridor designation, so arguments about growth and congestion matter most there, and they matter most when the board sets corridor priorities, not in the last week of the comment period.

The 2026 update: what changed and why

Lesson 4 explains the money. In short, the fiscal 2026 budget moved $165 million of General Fund cash into the Strategic Initiatives Program fund, and the fiscal 2027 budget moved none. ITD staff told the board in June that the lack of Strategic Initiatives money had the largest impact on the program. The minutes record these planning choices:

• The board previously supported targets of $200 million a year for pavement and $100 million a year for bridges, and the draft protected them.
• Programming assumed the same funding level in each of the seven years.
• The draft set aside reserves of $20 million a year and an average of $3.4 million a year for traffic operations maintenance and replacement.
• More than $1 billion of projects moved into Early Development.
• Staff recommended using TECM money as pay-as-you-go for projects rather than issuing new bonds, while remaining open to bonding.
• Staff projected net funds for contract construction and right-of-way, after operations costs, of $115.4 million in fiscal 2027, $59.3 million in fiscal 2028 (which includes one-time spending on the State Street building), $73.3 million in fiscal 2029 and $72.3 million in fiscal 2030.

The Idaho Statesman story republished by East Idaho News on July 5, 2026 put numbers on the result: nearly $1.3 billion of highway work in the unfunded category (68 highway projects), another $1.5 billion of congestion projects that would not advance to bonding (12 more TECM projects), 80 projects and nearly $2.8 billion combined, and more than $500 million of projects in southwest Idaho. In ITD's District 3 (southwest Idaho), 14 projects were proposed as unfunded, including TECM projects that would not go to bond. The story said the Idaho 16 extension, already funded and under construction, was not affected. An ITD spokesperson described the shift as "more of an operation-focus" intended to "help maintain, operate and preserve the state system that we already have now."

Regional coverage filled in local lists. The Idaho State Journal (June 25, 2026, as carried by The Herald Journal) listed Pocatello-area delays, among them the Yellowstone to Garrett corridor widening (more than $13.9 million), Siphon to Tyhee Road widening (more than $12.2 million), and South Fifth Avenue interchange ramp improvements (more than $9.5 million), plus TECM-bonded work at the Blackfoot exits of I-15 whose timing depends on when the board decides to issue bonds. East Idaho News (July 20, 2026) listed eastern Idaho projects moved to unfunded, including advance right-of-way purchase for an improved I-15 to US-20 connector, a third lane on US-20 between Rigby and Idaho Falls, and widening US-20 from Chester to Ashton to four lanes. ITD told East Idaho News the projects had not been canceled, and an ITD spokesman told the Idaho State Journal they were being reclassified as early development and "still need to be done."

East Idaho News also described ITD's priority order as "OPRE": operate, preserve, restore, then expand, with expansion funded only if money remains. That is a useful lens for reading the program. In a tight year, the expand line is the one that moves.

Reading the summary pages

The front of the ITIP has a table comparing "available" funds to "programmed" funds for each year. Figure 2 charts the fiscal 2027 to 2033 numbers. The table does not print units, but the project listings state "Dollars in Thousands with Match," so the figure treats the table as thousands and converts to millions.

Three things stand out. The first year is far larger than the rest. Part of the reason is visible in the table itself: several lines (the electric vehicle and carbon reduction programs created by the 2021 federal act, plus transit, airport and formula debt service money) appear only in fiscal 2027 or shrink sharply after it, and the document notes that federal fiscal 2026 was the last year of that act. Available money falls from about $1.02 billion in fiscal 2027 to about $527 million in fiscal 2033, which is what a flat revenue assumption plus inflation looks like on paper. And the gap between available and programmed widens in the later years, reflecting reserves and money not yet assigned to projects. Summed across seven years, the table shows roughly $4.65 billion available and $4.19 billion programmed; those totals are this course's arithmetic from the printed rows.

The program summary also breaks fiscal 2027 state highway spending into categories. Figure 3 shows the main ones.

The core state highway categories (pavement, bridge, safety, capacity, supporting infrastructure and system support) add up to $358.7 million in fiscal 2027, according to the summary. Capacity, the category for adding lanes outside TECM, is $10 million. That single number tells you more about the 2026 shift than any press release.

How to read a project line

The project listings, sorted by district, county, route or program, are where you will spend most of your time. Each line carries the same columns: Key No., Sponsor, Program, Fund, Ph (phase), Mileposts, Route/Location, Work/Detail, Notes, Lifetime Direct Costs, Total, Federal, Match, and scheduled costs for each year from 2027 to 2033, plus a "PREL" column for preliminary work. Figure 4 shows the layout with an invented example line.

Field by field:

• Key No. The project's permanent ID. It stays the same from the first scoping study through the final contract. Every later search should use it.
• Sponsor. Usually ITD. A city, county, highway district or tribe appears here for local projects using federal money.
• Program. Which part of the program funds it: pavement, bridge, safety, TECM, Early Development and so on. The program name is your clue to the selection rules in the table above.
• Fund. The funding source code. Codes in the listings include NH (National Highway), STP (Surface Transportation Program), IM (Interstate Maintenance), ST (state) and STECM (TECM). The ITIP summary does not define every code; ask ITD's programming office for the current fund code list if one is unclear.
• Ph. The phase. The ITIP defines PE as preliminary engineering by state or consultant staff, RW as right-of-way acquisition, and CN as construction, utilities, construction engineering and purchases. Other phase codes, such as PC and CE, also appear in ITD documents; check their meaning with ITD before writing about them.
• Notes. Single letters with set meanings: G for grouped in the STIP, 1 for also shown in an MPO TIP, 2 for advance construction with non-federal funds, P, R and B for projects that address federal pavement, travel time reliability and bridge measures, W for work zone safety priority, A for alternative contracting, and M for projects in multiple programs.
• Lifetime direct costs and year columns. The lifetime figure is the estimate for the whole project, all phases. The year columns show when money is scheduled. A project with money only in PE, or with the word "unfunded" against RW and CN, is not going to be built in this seven-year window unless a later update changes that.

Real lines from the District 3 listing

Here are several District 3 projects as they appeared in the fiscal 2027 District 3 listing when this lesson was prepared. The PDF's text runs columns together, so treat the details as a reading exercise and confirm each one in the PDF before quoting it.

Key No.	Project	What the line shows
23188	I-84 and SH-44 interchange, Canyon County	Early Development program, IM fund code. About $1.0 million for right-of-way appears in the 2027 column, and every phase carries the "Unfunded" flag. Phase estimates: about $6.7 million for preliminary engineering, $1.0 million for right-of-way and $97.9 million for construction.
23335	SH-55, Pear Lane to Farmway, Caldwell	Early Development program with the STECM (TECM) fund code. $2.0 million for preliminary engineering and $20.0 million for right-of-way appear in the 2027 column, flagged unfunded. Phase estimates: about $10.2 million for engineering and $34 million for right-of-way; no construction estimate is listed.
24309	US-20/26, Middleton Road to Star Road, Ada and Canyon counties	Early Development program, NH fund code. No money scheduled in any year; construction estimate about $125.5 million, flagged unfunded.
23557	I-84, Black Canyon Road to Sand Hollow, Payette and Canyon counties	Early Development program, IM fund code. Rigid pavement rehabilitation; $2.0 million for preliminary engineering appears in the 2027 column; construction estimate about $100 million, flagged unfunded.
20574	SH-44, Star Road to SH-16, Ada County	TECM program, STECM fund code. Construction of about $3.2 million scheduled in 2027. The June 2026 board also advanced $6 million of construction into fiscal 2026 for this project (resolution ITB26-31).
23187	SH-55, North Fork Payette River (Rainbow Bridge), Valley County	Bridge restoration, with part of the cost in the safety program (note M, multiple programs). Replace a bridge at the end of its design life. Right-of-way money in 2027 and 2028; construction estimate about $103 million, scheduled in 2029 and 2030.

Notice the pattern. The projects with construction still scheduled are bridge replacement and work already under way. The new interchanges and widenings are in Early Development with design money only. That is what "operate, preserve, restore, then expand" looks like at the line level.

Six questions to ask about any project line

Once you can read the columns, the same short list of questions works on any project, in any district, in any year.

1. Which phase is funded? Money in PE only means design. Money in RW means the state is buying land. Money in CN means a contract is planned. Many headlines about "funded" projects describe design money only.
2. Which program and fund code pay for it? The program tells you which selection rules apply and which pot of money is at risk if revenue changes. A TECM fund code ties the project to the sales tax stream and the board's bonding decisions; a federal code ties it to the federal act and its reauthorization.
3. Has the cost changed? Compare the lifetime estimate with the prior year's figure for the same key number. Cost growth can come from inflation, scope changes or better design information. Each has a different explanation, and ITD should be able to say which one applies.
4. Has the schedule slipped? A construction year that moves later each update is a sign the project is being used to balance the program.
5. Who else is involved? The notes column flags projects also shown in an MPO TIP and projects using advance construction with non-federal money. Either one means another agency's documents will tell part of the story.
6. What happens if it is not built? For safety projects, ask for the crash history. For pavement and bridge projects, ask for the condition rating and what interim maintenance will cost. For expansion projects, ask for the traffic forecast the benefit-cost analysis used.

Write the answers down in a simple table with one row per key number and one column per year. Repeat it every September when the new program is approved. After two or three years you will have a record of how the plan for your area actually changed, which is more reliable than any single year's press release.

Where this fits in the rest of the course

The money behind the ITIP is covered in Lesson 2 and Lesson 4; the constitutional fight over the 2025 budget is in Lesson 3. For local roads not in the ITIP, see Lesson 6 on highway district budgets and plans and Lesson 1 on who owns which road. Lesson 7 explains the federal programs behind the fund codes and the MPO TIPs. Lesson 9 turns this lesson's comment steps into a full advocacy plan, and Lesson 10 follows a project into contracts.

Related courses: Testifying and Public Comment and Laws and Rules, lesson 9 cover written comments and testimony. Transportation Board meetings are public meetings under the rules in Idaho Open Meetings. To request board packets, comment logs or project files, see Idaho Public Records Requests. For working with the program's numbers, see Data and Statistics. Elected officials can compare the ITIP process with local hearings in Conducting Public Meetings.