BOISE, Idaho — A major traffic jam on I-84 eastbound Tuesday evening involving a semi-truck had traffic backed up for over four hours.
Kyle Angerman, a Treasure Valley native said, “We have a beautiful city. A beautiful area we get to live in. But traveling to where we need to get to is always a struggle.”
There are not many options when it comes to navigating your way through the Treasure Valley. With two major highway closures in recent weeks, we got a real taste of how difficult it really can be.
However, due to the major growth in the area's population, when drivers look to escape the freeway, they overflood the surface streets.
Adam Hull explained, “Go further out towards Kuna. Hopefully the further away from the freeway you get, the less the traffic is going to go there.”
Idaho News 6 reached out to the Idaho Transportation Department about what they have done, or plan to do, to help alleviate some of the congestion. ITD said they have widened portions of I-84 over the last several years. They have also just begun widening from Franklin to Centennial Way in Caldwell, hoping to smooth out some of the traffic.
We also reached out to Ada County Highways District and are waiting to hear back, though we were able to find a map showing the five-year plan of how they plan to handle the uptick in traffic.
One area in the plan is to widen the stretch of Eagle Road that extends between Amity and Lake Hazel, increasing it from two lanes to five. Included in this project is the addition of a roundabout at Taconic Drive, along with enhanced pedestrian walkways and bicycle lanes on both sides.
The ITD also says they plan on building a new overpass on I-84 that leads to 5 Mile Road by 2029.
