Boise Transportation Thread

[City Of Trees]

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...

[BoiseAirport]

Originally Posted by City Of Trees

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?

[boisecynic]

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.

[Evo5Boise]

Originally Posted by boisecynic

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.

[Cottonwood]

Originally Posted by City Of Trees

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...

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

[Hawk]

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.

[boisecynic]

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.

[City Of Trees]

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?

[City Of Trees]

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

[BoiseAirport]

Originally Posted by City Of Trees

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.

[boisecynic]

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.

[boisecynic]

Originally Posted by City Of Trees

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?

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.

[Hawk]

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

[Cottonwood]

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.

[boisecynic]

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

[Hawk]

Originally Posted by boisecynic

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

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

[BoiseAirport]

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:

[Hawk]

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

[s.p.hansen]

Awesome plane!

[City Of Trees]

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.