BOISE, Idaho — The Ada County Highway District has been accused of a lot of things, but being prepared for the future is not one of them. They just created their annual report earlier this year that gives them a head start on their five year work plan. They like to call it a good glimpse into the state of the network, and where they need to make more investments. In other words, it means where to build and when.
As planning supervisor, Ryan Head has a lot on his plate coordinating a long term plan. "One of the biggest priorities was to address the congestion in Southwest Boise. But it kind of started this year with our Cole and Victory project. You will see consistently for the next five years, one of two, or maybe even three projects going on at the same time. Focusing on widening intersections, and roadway segments."
And if you think Ada County farm roads are disappearing fast, you're right. But that doesn't mean every road will look like Eagle Road, which by the way is under the umbrella of the Idaho Transportation Department. Head says, "is it going to be three or five lanes, we have a few that will be seven like State or Fairview and some areas in Northwest Meridian where they wanted it to stay three lanes because of a lot of schools on them and they don't want to fully open that up, so we look at that."
Working with other agencies and municipalities is the key to a successful project getting done on time. "So if they're going to do that we can get that project done sooner and the Idaho Transportation Department saw the same thing with Chinden and by all of us coming together we got some improvements done."
By the way, work on the huge Ten Mile project is expected to be complete this fall at a cost of just over six million dollars from Ustick to McMillan and four million dollars from McMillan to Chinden with Costco paying roughly half of the project up front.
Remember the next time you get stuck in construction work, if there wasn't any construction work that means no new and wider roads being built. And that's something nobody wants.
