EAGLE, Idaho — Idaho News 6 showed you last fall how an ACHD road project in North Ada County Road was turning a paved road back into dirt and gravel — we returned to see the progress crews were making.
Driving down Chaparral and Willow Creek roads, you’re taken back by the beauty of the Eagle foothills. But like other areas in the Treasure Valley, growth is changing the landscape.
Tom Otte, Deputy Director of Operations, said a lot of thought went into this transformation.
“We want to impact the commuting people as little as possible, that’s why we tell people in advance when projects will start, we try to the work done as fast as we can," Otte explains. "The pavement that we had in wasn’t the best quality of pavement for the amount of traffic the road was taking. Taking it back to gravel will make it a better road surface, it will be easier to maintain and will last quite a bit longer."
And in terms of safety, Otte says, "It‘ll increase safety as well. It will be a road where you can get good traction, they’re won't be as many potholes where you could get struck. It will function close to an impermeable road surface.”
You can see what ACHD is doing on one section of Willow Creek Road. They’re building berms for two reasons — one and more importantly is for water flow to keep water off the road and also to discourage people from driving off the road onto private lands.
The increased traffic on the rural road has a lot to do with the massive new Valnova development. A Valnova representative who I spoke with in December acknowledged that trucks were using that route to get into the east side of the development.
Rob Behunin told me Valnova wants to work with the county and be good neighbors. “We went to the highway district, we know it’s heavy truckload. We knew there was going to be impacts there, so we asked what do we need to do? They said we’d like you to help repair the road. They showed us which sections and we invested about $48 thousand of our own money, not an impact fee, just us volunteering saying 'What do you need us to do?'”
There are about two miles of work left to finish the project that will extend to Aerie Lane. Otte said the project should be completed sometime next year. In the meantime, keep your eye out for the road construction signs that are posted.
