Treasure Valley has variety of options to boost cycling infrastructure

In the Treasure Valley, a growing population is putting more cars on the road and more pollution in the air. Transportation is the number one source of air pollution in Idaho, said Eric Willadsen, conservation program manager with the Sierra Club in Idaho.

One healthy, enjoyable and easy way to ease some of that congestion is to travel by bicycle.

“There aren’t a lot of roads that I feel so uncomfortable on to avoid completely,” said Jimmy Hallyburton, founder of the nonprofit Boise Bicycle Project, which provides bicycles to Boise residents and teaches bicycle education. “However, if I’m riding with my niece and my niece is behind me, I’m going to feel a lot differently,” he said, explaining that it’s important to create biking infrastructure that is safe for all ages.

Conventional wisdom says to widen roads to ease congestion, but studies have shown that this increases the number of cars on the road. Roads are also costly to build and maintain, said Cynthia Gibson, executive director of the nonprofit organization Idaho Walk Bike Alliance. “And cars are expensive to maintain and own for all of us,” she added.

Prioritizing bike infrastructure could alleviate congestion and improve air quality while helping people use cars for fewer trips, said Hallyburton.

One way to do this is to build separate, off-street bike paths for walking, cycling and other non-motorized forms of transportation. One such pathway already in existence is the Boise River Greenbelt, which runs for 25 miles through the Treasure Valley. But as the area has expanded, many residents live further and further away from the greenbelt and don’t have any dedicated bike pathways near them that they could use for cycle for leisure, to run errands, or get to work.

However, the valley has a special resource it could use to make more dedicated bike pathways: irrigation canals. The Ridenbaugh Canal and others like it move water from the Boise River, winding through the valley and reconnecting with the river miles downstream. Many canals have access roads adjacent to them along which a bike path could be built.

“You could almost view the canal network as a circulatory system,” said Tom Laws, a planner with the city of Boise. Building bike pathways alongside canals could create a region-wide network of off-street bike paths that could provide safe routes toward city centers and the Greenbelt, he said.

Cities like Eagle and Meridian have already developed a robust infrastructure of dedicated bike pathways in the past 15 years by encouraging developers to build paths along canals in tandem with other development projects, Willadsen said. Canals are also promising for a city like Boise, which does not have many undeveloped areas because it allows the city to fit paths into existing developed areas. The city plans to work with a consultant to develop a process to identify and prioritize canals for conversion to bike paths. It has already started a few projects, including one near Cassia Park on the Boise Bench.

Building bike paths is an equity issue, Hallyburton said. Since cheaper housing tends to be located farther from Boise’s city center and amenities, providing pathways throughout the city rather than just near the center should be a priority, he said.

Making sure everyone has access to these pathways requires deliberate effort on the part of cities and planning agencies, Willadsen said. For example, it is important to ask for input from residents who may benefit from having such pathways but may not know how to get involved in the planning process, he said.

Historically, residents of some of the most bikeable areas of Boise, like the North End, were vocal in the city planning process, said Willadsen. But there are other areas of the city, like the Bench, that are just as old but don’t have as much biking infrastructure, he said. This could be because the Bench historically tended to have lower-income residents who may have not had the resources at their disposal to participate in the planning process and ask for improvements, he said.

Bike infrastructure projects need funding. Some funding for Idaho projects comes from the federal government. The Idaho Walk Bike Alliance formed to ensure that the $3.5 million in federal transportation dollars coming to Idaho were dedicated to projects that supported non-motorized transportation, from sidewalks to bike paths, said Gibson. The state spends a lot of money on roads for cars, but prioritizing funding for bikes and pedestrians is a public safety issue, she said.

“Approximately 8% of all road deaths in Idaho are people walking or biking,” Gibson said. “So if we build a system that’s safe for everyone, we save lives,” she said, adding that these kinds of projects also add vibrancy to communities.

Boise is one of the only cities in the country that doesn’t manage its own streets. Most of its streets fall under the jurisdiction of the Ada County Highway District, which is working to create more bike infrastructure by adding bike lanes to new and existing streets, according to the district’s website. The district annually spends 7% of its budget on bike projects and has developed a matrix to evaluate what kind of bike infrastructure should be installed on a street based on how busy it is, said Ryan Head, a planning supervisor with the district. The district also recruits community members to serve on advisory committees that provide input on where bike infrastructure is needed, he said.

Funding for canal pathways has to come from another source. If the canal bike paths connect people to parks and open space, funding could come from money for parks, Hallyburton said.

“The funding is probably the easy part,” Hallyburton said, “it’s the community buy-in that’s really important.”

Building canals requires buy-in from all of the stakeholders the canal touches, from the irrigation district that owns the canals to residents whose property sits adjacent to a proposed pathway. Though residents are typically enthusiastic about new bike infrastructure, sometimes people are concerned about crime or their property values going down when a bike path is installed, Hallyburton said. However, the reality is usually the opposite, and involving all stakeholders in the process ensures that people have a voice and there aren’t any surprises, he said.