WENATCHEE — Construction projects to make roads safer and ease traffic congestion could get shelved because of a projected $214 million shortfall in gas-tax revenues from 2007 to 2011, blamed on high gas prices.

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State Department of Transportation officials in Olympia are in the midst of an across-the-board evaluation to determine which projects slated to be paid for with gas-tax money should go ahead as planned, which should be postponed and which should be canceled. There simply isn't enough money coming in to cover what the DOT had planned on spending.

Three projects in the next three years to improve traffic flow on and around the Sen. George Sellar Bridge and one to build a new high-volume corridor on Sunset Highway in East Wenatchee are among the projects under review, said Jeff Adamson, DOT spokesman for North Central Washington.

The bridge projects are estimated at $52.7 million, and the Eastside corridor work is expected to cost $43 million.

"Anything not yet started is up in the air," Adamson said.

With record-high gas prices, people are driving less. That translates to less gas-tax money for an agency that was already strapped before fuel prices went sky high. The reprioritization of pending projects started in the latter half of July, said agency spokeswoman Melanie Coon.

A dismal June revenue forecast projecting total revenues in the 2007-09 budget to come in at $4.13 billion prompted the statewide evaluation. In February, DOT financial analysts pegged the anticipated revenue total for the 2007-09 biennium at $4.21 billion. Revenues during the 2009-11 biennium are projected at $4.42 billion, according to the forecast conducted in June. That's $137 million less than was forecast in February.

"It is very bleak," said Elmira Forner, vice-chair of the state Transportation Commission and a Manson resident. The commission sets DOT policy. "If the revenue keeps declining, there is no way we can finish all the projects we have."

"This affects our projects immediately in the fact that cash flow is reduced," said Adamson. "It could all slow down."

The slide was well under way last fall when the agency cut its forecasted 2007-09 revenue by 3.2 percent. The state Legislature in January approved changes in the timing of some projects to help mitigate the downturn.

"We continue to make adjustments, but operational costs continue to increase and fuel prices have gone beyond what anyone could predict," reads a line from a sheet of talking points recently distributed to DOT public relations personnel and obtained by The World. "We're in the process of looking at the new forecast and will develop programmatic adjustment options for consideration by the governor and Legislature as part of the budget process, as we head into the second half of the biennium and into next year."

The financial squeeze could result in funding being shifted from some pending projects to others, but Coon said Monday she doesn't expect any jobs already planned to be scrapped altogether. Some could be put off, while others may be completed in phases rather than in a single shot.

"At this point we're having to be as creative as possible," she said.

Results of the evaluation are expected next month, Coon said.

Jay Patrick: 664-7155

patrick@wenworld.com