Roadwork Everywhere, No End in Sight

 Are there any roads or intersections in Boise that aren’t a) closed, b) torn up or c) gone?

  Of course there are. It just doesn’t seem that way when you’re trying to reach a destination more distant than, say, your front porch. 

  I’ve lived in Boise virtually all my life and can’t recall another time when so much roadwork was being done. It seems that no matter where you go, you run into signs warning of roadwork, actual roadwork and/or roads doing passably good imitations of bomb craters. 

  If you live in East Boise, plan on taking extra time to go anywhere west of, well, East Boise. That’s because two of the main streets in the East End – Warm Springs and State Street – are closed. They’ve been closed for weeks. I have more than a passing familiarity with this because I live in the East Boise and for weeks have been late for virtually everything west of there.

  And occasionally east of there. A couple of weeks ago, some friends who live east of my neighborhood planned to meet me for coffee. A logical spot to meet would have been The Trolley House, a cozy little restaurant on Warm Springs Avenue.

  I say “would have been” because The Trolley House was closed. Instead, we decided to meet at the Warm Springs Golf Course clubhouse. The decision made, I confidently drove up Walnut to Warm Springs, something I’ve done almost every day for years.

  What greeted me, however, wasn’t the traffic that makes you wait forever to get onto Warm Springs ever since Harris Ranch was built. People coming from Harris Ranch or other locations east of Walnut have to wait for oncoming traffic to make left turns onto Walnut, meaning that those of us wanting to get onto Warm Springs have to wait forever.

  That wasn’t the case on this particular morning, though. Instead of the usual, annoying traffic, the problem was even worse. Barricades had been erected and, just in case you were tempted to try to slip around them, heavy equipment had blocked the road completely. Short of abandoning your car and walking, there was no way to get onto Warm Springs. 

  My friends, meanwhile were enjoying their coffee at the golf course clubhouse and wondering where I was. When I called to explain, one of them suggested abandoning my car and using a bicycle.

  Barring that, he suggested a circuitous alternative route that, if I understood him correctly, would have put me somewhere in the vicinity of Tablerock. It sounded like a recipe for getting lost, something I’m extraordinarily good at doing. We never did meet for coffee, agreeing instead to postpone until Warm Springs is open again – whenever that is – or choose a different meeting place.

  There’s no guarantee, of course, that a different place would be accessible. So many roads are closed that you never know what’s accessible and what isn’t. I passed no fewer than nine roadwork, road-closed and detour signs on Front Street alone last week.

  Have you tried to drive down Mallard Drive, off of Park Center, lately? Mallard happens to be the street that leads to a clinic where I get allergy shots. It’s gone. Not the clinic, the street. Completely gone – sidewalks and all. It looks like a bomb went off there. You can’t even walk around the crater.

  “How do I get to the clinic on the other side of the blast zone?” I asked a workman.

  He thought about it for a few seconds and suggested backtracking a couple of blocks, parking my car at a business on the opposite side of what was left of the street and walking. This involved walking past the back side of the business, through a park and a marsh and across a rather large parking lot. Bottom line:  15 minutes late for the allergy shot.

  That isn’t the only crater in town. Another one has closed the street where a member of a band I play in lives. His home is where we rehearse. The street where his house is located looks like a scene from “Casualties of War.” He was told that it would be closed for two years.

  Parts of Warm Springs Avenue and State Street have been closed for weeks. This, of course, has meant multiple detours. You have to wonder how long it will be before the people doing the work run out of detour signs.

  To find out the reasons for all the roadwork and when at least some of it might be finished, I contacted the Ada County Highway District and was surprised to learn that ACHD isn’t doing most of the projects. Most, according to ACHD public information officer Rachel Bjornestad, are “utility improvements and/or work related to new development.”

  In the downtown area, she added, “a lot of the utilities are old and need repairs or replacement even without the new development. The Capital City Development Corporation also has several projects in the downtown Boise area, including Eleventh Street and the Linen Blocks projects.”

  When will it end?

  ‘We have seen this level of activity, especially in the downtown core, for the last two to three years and expect to see it continue.  As one project finishes, there is another waiting in the wings.”

  No end in sight, in other words. 

  It looks like my friend may have been right when he suggested an alternative to driving.

  It might be time to drag out the bicycle.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at  woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.