Ada County Highway District Commissioners passed a motion to adopt a new design for State Street between 8th and 14th Street in downtown Boise last month. The change brings a reduced number of lanes for vehicle traffic, an enlarged, multi-use path on either side of the road and bus pullouts.
A more comprehensive overview of the new design, dubbed “Concept B(1)” for the duration of the concept selection process, is available from ACHD’s website.
The project began as an effort to revitalize this stretch of State Street due to deteriorating concrete. Tom Laws, the ACHD planning manager of the project, said that the concept grew out of a desire to build things out of concrete, rather than asphalt. Concrete can last 50-100 years, whereas asphalt lifespan of roughly 20 years.
Throughout the open meeting where the decision was made, ACHD commissioners referred to the City of Boise’s desire to build a more walkable, bicycle-friendly downtown.
An extensive public comment section at the July 24 open meeting showed support for Concept B(1), many commenters being frequent bicyclists who detailed their personal bicycle commutes. Among them was BSU Assistant Professor Anna Bergstrom, who spoke of her commute which crosses State Street. As a frequent commuter to the Boise State campus, she voiced support for Concept B(1) because of its integration of multimodal transportation.
However, according to one ACHD Commissioner, Dave McKinney of District 5 (Meridian/Eagle) neither the respondents of their public outreach program, which was done online, nor the large group of bicycle commuters who appeared to give testimony were truly representative of the people using State Street.
“I’m not convinced that the outreach that was done to get public input on this, nor the public input we’ve had here tonight, is representative of the views of the people as a whole,” McKinney said in opposition of the project. “And we have an obligation to the people as a whole.”
Earlier in the commission meeting, when Laws presented the proposed projects to the commission, he called up Sonia Daleiden of Kittleson and Associates, a firm that provides traffic analytics, to explain that in addition to an online survey, they also used data from Replica, a tool that gathers GPS data from phones and other devices to track how and by whom roads are used.
McKinney was largely independent in his stance — Commissioner Alexis Pickering, District 2 (Boise/Garden City/Eagle/Meridian), described this stretch of State Street as “wildly uncomfortable as a motorist”.
“Folks are speeding, there’s a lot of unpredictable movement,” Pickering said. “You’re having to really have your head on a swivel. And that’s not easy for us, as drivers.”
Amid discussion of the proposed designs, commissioners said that a reduction in lanes on State Street should direct motorists to parallel roads.
Commissioner Kent Goldthorpe, District 4 (Kuna/Rural Ada), questioned why the public has not made more use of Whitewater Park Boulevard, which runs past Esther Simplot Park, Whittier Elementary School, and a future CWI Boise campus.
“We built Whitewater Boulevard because there was a demand there. And as you heard tonight, it isn’t being utilized. That is a great place to avoid State Street,” said Goldthorpe. “Why don’t you use it?”
Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of Concept B(1), which, once it exits the planning phase, will be built by the lowest-bidding contractor, as ACHD is legally bound to do.
