Boise Transportation Thread
 

Hello!

Seeing as much talk in our thread regarding transportation in the Treasure Valley, I felt it could be best to start a new thread so as not to distract too much from other non-transportation developments in the Boise Projects Thread. This thread can be a haven for us transportation enthusiasts or simply for those who are interested in stopping by and seeing what might be flying, driving, hang-gliding, and train-riding through our fair city's future. :cool:

So, to kick things off! Here's recent news, made official today:

http://www.ktvb.com/news/Alaska-Airl...126395898.html

Alaska Airlines to expand Boise-Seattle routes

Here's the new Seattle schedule for next summer on Alaska/Horizon (could very well change to more or less depending on how traffic holds up):
2269 BOI-SEA, 6:45am
2391 BOI-SEA, 9:15am
2655 BOI-SEA, 10:15am*
2237 BOI-SEA, 12:35pm
2133 BOI-SEA, 3:10pm
2239 BOI-SEA, 5:05pm
2363 BOI-SEA, 6:15pm
2218 BOI-SEA, 6:32pm (1-stop in Lewiston)
2657 BOI-SEA, 7:30pm*
2399 BOI-SEA, 8:50pm

*new flight

And from several different sources, it sounds like this may be the beginning of Alaska/Horizon expansion in the Boise and Spokane markets. Whether that means more frequency, more cities, or both I'm not sure yet. May not mean anything at all other than they're looking at whether the market can support it, or if not, whether there are any other advantages to adding additional flights.

Every month (though usually about once every 4-6 months or so they'll skip a month), the Boise Airport Commission will hold meetings and presentations regarding current traffic levels, details on projects, recent news, and other miscellanious stuff going on at the airport, which gives us food to munch on. http://www.cityofboise.org/Departmen.../page3840.aspx

Here's the June 2011 presentation, the July 2011 should be here shortly.
http://www.cityofboise.org/Departmen...esentation.pdf

Top 20 airports in O&D traffic out of Boise (aka all these people at the airport, where are they going?), 2Q 2010 (routes with nonstops in bold):
1. Seattle (SEA)
2. Portland (PDX)
3. Spokane (GEG)
4. Denver (DEN)
5. Salt Lake City (SLC)
6. Las Vegas (LAS)
7. Los Angeles (LAX)
8. Phoenix (PHX)
9. Oakland (OAK)
10. San Diego (SAN)
11. Reno (RNO)
12. Sacramento (SMF)
13. Minneapolis (MSP)
14. San Francisco (SFO)
15. San Jose (SJC)
16. Orange Country (SNA)
17. Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW)
18. Chicago O'Hare (ORD)
19. Ontario, CA (ONT)
20. Orlando (MCO)

But, don't feel this thread has to be restricted to aviation or one form of transportion. This is an all-inclusive thread about anything that gets us around the Treasure Valley. Light rail news? ITD news? Highway news? Road construction news? All is welcome here!

:cheers:

These two posts are from the Boise Development Thread.

bikes??? bikes are toys for children.

i'll take my coal-powered original hummer any day over a squeaky old bicycle. i love driving around, revving the engine, blaring the horn and yelling "get off my sidewalk you dang cyclists!!!"


GOD i love boise...


;)

You've gotta show some appreciation for the spandex and lycra crowd.
:hug:

Since Cottonwood mentioned bike commuting as a good topic for this thread, I thought I'd start off on a topic that I know we've talked about before--making 8th Street a backbone of bike transportation through Downtown, from the river to the North End. I'll explain some thoughts that I've had on this matter in several parts.

The first section I'll start with is from the river to Front Street. Please note that this drawing that I put up is the most complex example. A far simpler solution is to completely shut down 8th Street to motorized traffic (especially from Myrtle to River)--and I certainly wouldn't oppose it. However, I have a feeling that there will have to be some compromise for loading zones, street parking, etc. As such, here's a compromise I came up with that tries to make it as safe as possible for the bikes:

http://archive.theskyiscrape.com/boi...Street%201.jpg

The idea is to dedicate half of the street to a bike path, and the other half to one lane plus parking for motorists. You could separate it via a treed median (marked in bright green), just like what already exists on 8th Street in two places--behind the library and in between the 8th Street Marketplace.

Note the alternating directions of 8th Street for each block. The idea is to discourage thru traffic down the road as much as possible, and to prevent crossover between cars and bikes. For that latter reason, I also turned Fulton into a one-way westbound street, which is at quite a tricky intersection.

You'd also want to put a traffic signal at 8th and River. They really need one there right now anyway--there's a ton of pedestrian traffic that uses the crosswalk signal anyway. There will also need to be some green paint on the intersections with Myrtle and River as proper guides.

Finally, look at the top of the map at Front Street. I would get rid of that stupid bend in the road that makes absolutely no sense for bikes to try and get across.

I just noticed this thread, and it is a good topic for Boise.

This is an amazing idea. I take 8th street everyday to work and it serves me pretty well, but an exclusive bike path would be awesome!

Agreed, excellent job City of Trees, as someone who frequently walks and bikes to downtown, I really love that idea. :)

July 2011 Airport Commission meeting presentation was put up. Some interesting information here and there, including photos of when the 747-8 and the 787 came into Boise (all of which I missed because I was in Kentucky :hell:). Also included are the top 20 markets out of BOI for 4Q2010, as well as the current status and map of the future runway layout.

http://www.cityofboise.org/Departmen...esentation.pdf

Also, apparently they began construction on the Gateway project which will create a nice entrance into the Boise Airport. I'm looking forward to that. On an unrelated note, the 747-8 is doing flight tests and building hours to ensure there's nothing wrong with the airframe over periods of long, sustained use, so knowing the aircraft had to fly thousands of miles over the US in one flight anyway, I guess they decided to have a little fun with it. Notice the routing? http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE523

Thought that was humorous. :P

Thanks Congress. :hell:

http://www.ktvb.com/news/Treasure-Va...126737038.html

Thanks for the kudos, folks.

I'm sorry I haven't had time to continue the 8th Street series, but in the meantime, I have some real life news to deliver on that front. In the CCDC portion of 8th Street, they have painted double yellow lines right down the middle of the street--which would seem to indicate that some form of two-way traffic is in the works. I'll try and remember to take a picture of it this afternoon.

I'm not sure what to think yet, as I'm not sure what their intentions are. It's not like the portion of 8th between Front and Broad that's offset for a bike-only lane southbound. They also still have the parking bays on the east side of the road, which would make traveling northbound very tricky, if not impossible, by car. It would seem dangerous to have southbound cars swerve into those spots while northbound bikes come, though.

It's also weird that they'd paint this lines without putting northbound branches on the traffic signals.

Thoughts?

Cycling news Evo5Boise posted in the main Boise thread...

And now they've painted the bike logo on the road:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../8thstbike.jpg

I tried it out yesterday, and while it gets the job done, it still feels a bit unnerving to have moving cars on one side and parked cars on the other, both going the opposite direction. It would make more sense if they moved the parking to the other side of the road. Of course, that would cost more money, so at least this is better than nothing.

I'll also be annoyed when the loading trucks stop in the bike lane...oh well.

Well, perhaps this is mitigated a bit. According to this video, they're turning the parking down the CCDC section into a load only zone from 6-10 AM.

http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/...treet-downtown

Still, in just watching that video, you can see that some of those trucks are so big they're still going to take over the bike lane as well....

:previous: I saw that at BW.Com and at first thought they were announcing no more cars on 8th Street just delivery trucks, then I saw the rest of the story. It would be so nice to have 8th shut off to autos (except for deliveries trucks for the shops and restuarants) and turn the street into an extension of The Grove.

Awesome
 

Glad to see this forum up and running. It's been a couple weeks since I've been able to get on. I just moved back to Boise and am certainly happy to be back home! I've been busy unpacking, biking the greenbelt, exploring downtown and all I've missed by being away.

I am very excited about Alaska increasing their presence here. Boise really makes sense to them, as their hubs are currently just Portland and Seattle. As Alaska is right now, they only really make sense for people traveling to and from the extreme NW. They could increase their market share and presence in the intermountain west by using Boise as a minor hub. They could resume service from smaller cities in the Northwest to Boise, and then feed those passengers from Boise on to Los Angeles, Denver, Las Vegas, Reno, Phoenix and possibly DFW and ATL. This would allow people from Sun Valley, Eugene, Yakima, Tri Cities, Billings, Bozeman, Missoula, etc to fly Alaska without having to do so much backtracking in order to pass through their hubs at Portland and Seattle. Loyalty is such a huge factor in choosing an airline, and Alaska could market themselves as the Northwest's own Airline.

I know I've described this scenario on the main Boise thread before, but I wanted to echo it in a forum that makes more sense for discussion.

Alaska is pretty much the Northwest's airline already. Horizon had a hub before in Boise and it didn't work.

I think a better way to put it would be "it stopped working" rather than "it didn't work." It worked well for over 10 years, however phasing out the Baby Dashes (which were perfect for the Boise base), as well as the increased presence of Southwest which cut deeply into some of the core Horizon flights is what killed the base in the early 2000s.

This list isn't 100% accurate as it's missing a few destinations that Horizon served nonstop from Boise (namely Denver, Phoenix, San Diego), and according to several Alaska/Horizon timetables I have from the mid-90s, there were several points where the number of daily flights hit 45-49. I thought you folks might find it interesting. :)

http://www.departedflights.com/QXBOIhub.html

Here is an interesting link to Compass about future mass transit and the new Multimodal transportation center that is supposedly going to begin being constructed next year.

http://www.compassidaho.org/prodserv...cts-tvhcts.htm

Right, but they don't have the Q200s anymore. It is a nice idea for another hub but it won't happen. At least not for several years. I could see Alaska trying Hawaii flights before that!

Just read 787 is on its way. BOI is a Facebook friend. haha

They've selected a site for the transit center: 11th Street between the Record Exchange and the Boise Cascade building:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/0...own-boise.html

I like how they're calling the (hopeful) bluff of the BC building owners, who were throwing a fit over not wanting the center to be located next to their building.

As far as actual transportation goes, this would only necessitate the need, in my mind, to extend 12th Street to Myrtle so that you get better traffic flow to the Connector. Knowing my luck, though, they'll instead convert 11th to two-way... :(

Good to hear!

Is the trolley proposal officially dead, or could we see another push for it in the future?

Without Federal funding, I think it's safe to assume the trolley is dead for now.

Let's see what happens when Jump is built and a baseball stadium is built in the West End. Unlike the stadium, the whitewater park is a 99% sure thing beginning late fall and the 30th Extension is a 95% sure thing in 2013 with some fill work starting this fall. Esther's Park is very close to becoming a sure thing too. Give it 3 years or so and see what an impact these things have on the West End. All it would take is one or 2 major buildings, i.e. the stadium, to open the trolley issue again.

Frankly, a better use of that money would be to tunnelize Front. Start with the section from Capitol through 9th, then do the same with Myrtle.

I've always though about that. It would be a huge project but very beneficial for a growing downtown area like Boise. I think anyways.

Here is more info from BW.


http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/...ho-and-bannock

Multimodal Center Planned for 11th Between Idaho and Bannock
Posted by George Prentice on Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 3:22 PM



http://www.boiseweekly.com/binary/81...ltimodal_1.jpg

Boise really needs to adopt something close to what Portland has done with their transportation system, and use that them for an example. for example: Portland has really invested in light rail, biking and a nice bus system. yes, it creates more noise, but in the end less people are using their cars and instead using the city's transportation system instead of hundreds of cars on the roads and parked along the streets.
I understand some people in Boise want to keep the small town feel. But the city is growing whether they like it or not, and with a growing city things need to change in order to keep the city competing with larger cities in the 21st century.

ACHD's letter of 6-27-11 to the neighborhood regarding 30th Extension

Sorry for the jpg, this is from a PDF which was saved by them as a graphic and not text.

http://i.imgur.com/AwZ2Y.jpg

What they really should have done is make the extension meet up with Irene Street and just have one signal at that part of State Street instead of two. Unfortunately, it would have cost more in ROW acquisition. The funny thing is that ACHD would be condemning ITD land. How would that work? :haha:

Good to see that the BSU area continues to get friendlier for alternate transportation.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/0...sidewalks.html

Boise Avenue to get new sidewalks, bike lanes near BSU

Thank god, I live right exactly in that area, and all I can say is that the street is in desperate need of that... I never feel comfortable walking or riding my bike along that section, hence why I always ride to and connect through University to get wherever I need to go, even though its often quite out of the way.

Google maps has finally updated the aerial of the East Parkcenter Bridge area. There's a great view of Marianne Williams Park taking shape.

http://maps.google.com/?ll=43.57523,...h&z=16&vpsrc=6

Edit: The park itself is only a sliver along the river to the north and a big wetland and pond at the south end. The really light area will be residential development I presume. You can see a road taking shape through there, that will be Barber Way or Barber Valley Way, or something like that.

Irene? The extension should have aligned with 32nd instead of 31st. 32nd is already a collector and it would have solved the snafu with those skinny houses at the south end of Rose St. Yes they would have had to condemn ITD property, who knows why they didn't even try that route. Politics? ACHD stepping on ITD's turf, literally?

The rumor is that those warehouses off the end of Rose St are the overflow storage for the Idaho History Archives. There's some valuable stuff in there and no good place to move it to.

Pictures of the proposed Multimodel Transit Center site
 

This is where according to the drawing Cottonwood uploaded a short time ago that the new Transit Center will be located Downtown.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...9-11191801.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...9-11191722.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...9-11191821.jpg

:previous: Nice...when they get ready to build The Mod Center a lot of trees are going to have to be torn out and poor US Bank will lose their drive through banking too.

Thx for the pics Hawk. That last one though, omg, your shadow, you're an alien. :)

Oh no! I've been compromised!!!!

Anyone see the Illyushin IL-76 in Boise today? Man that thing is a beast, a very rare sight at the airport (at least I've never seen it here before). I went out to the airport after hearing it was coming in and lo and behold there it was. Got some pretty cool photos of it, will upload later. :)

Here's what it looked like:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VyF2Ynjlvl...ushin+Il76.jpg

:previous: OMG no fair!!!! wish i could have been there to have seen that!

:previous:

Awesome plane!

This is a small thing, but they are installing a pedestrian signal at the intersection of Capitol and Broad. I'll try to put a picture up of it later.

This is certainly better than nothing--plenty of people want to walk across there but have a real difficult time doing so. However, they should have put a full traffic signal there. Cars also have difficulty getting across, and my greatest fear is that there may be no synchronization with the rest of the signals on Capitol. If that signal goes off when the rest of the lights on Capitol are green, there will be severe gridlock at rush hour.

Here we go. I'm sure they'll add another pole on the other side of the road.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...9-21152906.jpg

anyone know how tall the modal center will be now that a location has been selected?

the chart on the development thread said 7-14 floors. however, i thought the preliminary proposal for this location was 5 floors?

:shrug:

personally, i was hoping that one of the other, larger locations would've been selected. in typical boise fashion, it seems that once this center is completed, it'll be too small in a hurry (see: boise airport garage).

I've heard that they reduced the size to 3 floors. :(

Here is some info:



http://www.valleyregionaltransit.org...etAug18_11.pdf


The core elements of the $12 million Multimodal Center in Boise would be housed in a minimum three story facility of approximately 75,000 square feet, including spec-office space and at least two levels of public parking. 150-200 parking spaces will be provided for transit riders and to replace surface-level
parking. The height of the facility could grow to as many as six levels if a private-public partnership reaches fruition to add more office space and parking at the facility.



Services and amenities planned at the Multimodal Center include:
• An indoor passenger plaza, including public rest rooms
• Sheltered outdoor waiting and seating areas
• A service desk to answer questions, provide information and sell bus passes.
• Information kiosks with specific information about ValleyRide schedules, ACHD Commuteride
vanpool services, carpool services, car-sharing services, bicycle-commuting maps and more.
• Public Wi-Fi
• Bicycle storage locker area
• Public art incorporated into the building design similar to the Boise Airport terminal.
• Taxi stand
• Retail space, including the possibility of coffee and food vendors
• Boise Police Department substation
• Private security officers
• 10,000 to 25,000 square feet of spec office space

Thank you for the info Cottonwood. :cheers:
-------------------
It's too bad that it's going to be on such a small lot, and that it will not be putting a dent in the Boise skyline.

According to ACHD's Road Wizard, there will also be another ped signal at Capitol and Grove. Awesome!

http://www.achdidaho.org/Departments...s.aspx?MID=261

Though, I don't like that you'll have to push a button to activate the signals. I always get super annoyed at 8th and Front when you don't get there in time to push the button (or everyone else already there forgets to do it), you wait forever for the next cycle since all those cars have to go down Front. They should just change automatically with the rest of the synchronization.

http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/...own-circulator

Boise Wins Federal Grant, Will Revisit Downtown Circulator
Posted by George Prentice on Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 10:56 AM

Looks like I'll have to mock up a new suggested route....

yay!

I really hope they'll go through with it this time after the study is done.

In class at the moment, so can't post a lot, but just saw in IBR an article about the Airport accepting architectural proposals for the parking garage expansion.... Finally, about time this thing gets done!! Damn NIMBYs.