From widening roads to making some areas safer for bikes, see what officials are tackling in 2019 as Boise continues to grow.

We decided to take a closer look at what exactly the biggest hurdles and priorities are when it comes to easing traffic congestion in the Treasure Valley.

No matter if you've lived in Boise for 10 years or if you're a newcomer to Idaho, it can be hard to dissect the different public transit options in the Treasure Valley.

"There are days when I am riding my bike to work, I’m worried because there’s a lot of cars very close to me and it's pretty intimidating," said Cynthia Gibson, the executive director of the Idaho Walk Bike Alliance.

And while small pockets of Boise are especially conducive to cyclists and others getting around without cars, some argue there's much work to be done.

Idaho is the only state in the nation that does not fund public transportation, according to a spokesperson with Valley Regional Transit, the Treasure Valley bus service and one of the Treasure Valley's two main public transit options. The lack of state funding inhibits some public transportation projects that would get more cars off the roads, such as Boise Mayor Dave Bieter's circulator project or Valley Regional Transit's long-term vision for an upgraded bus program called ValleyConnect 2.0 .

Others advocate for combating traffic in other ways, such as boosting alternative transportation.

So far, road widening has been ACHD's most common method of easing congestion around the Treasure Valley.

Managing the valley's roadways while meeting the growing number of drivers requires a coordinated approach involving multiple agencies. There's plenty of cooperation, but addressing congestion in the Treasure Valley also involves several conflicting viewpoints.

So what does the community want?

"That really wasn't what the community wanted," said Ryan Head, the ACHD planning and programs supervisor.

But, to the relief of some, adding a California freeway-like amount of lanes to one of the Treasure Valley's main thoroughfares — which currently mostly ranges from 4 to 5 lanes — isn't currently an Ada County Highway District (ACHD) plan.

Boise and rest of the booming Treasure Valley are growing so rapidly that traffic planners briefly considered expanding State Street to nine lanes.

"You can't build your way out of congestion and at some point, we just have to manage it whatever means we can," he said.

In fact, the Treasure Valley could eventually reach a tipping point where it won't be possible to build more roads to alleviate traffic snarls, according to Head.

Widening those State Street intersections will help with congestion and improve Valley Regional Transit's route, but the ACHD's plans are still short of what their forecasts and models (provided by the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho ), show what was needed to keep up with growth.

Their other main project is the widening of State Street and Collister Drive , which followed the expansion of the State Street and Veterans Memorial Parkway intersection last year.

ACHD has four major road widening projects in the works for 2019, with 300 more that will be designed or built in the next five years , according to Head.

Chapter two : Alternatives to road widening

Gibson, the executive director of the Idaho Walk Bike Alliance, is critical of ACHD's road-widening focus, arguing that continuing to widen roads creates new hurdles for pedestrians, cyclists and bus routes.

"Widening roads to accommodate cars is very expensive and it is very dangerous for people out walking and riding their bikes," Gibson said. "You have to always consider other modes (of transportation) because when you build roads just for cars, that’s exactly what you get – you get more cars."

Don Kostelec, the vice president of the Idaho Walk Bike Alliance, worked at ACHD from 2002 to 2008 and said, in retrospect, he could have done more to steer the agency towards better use of land during early growth planning.

“It’s kind of has been our national policy perspective on transportation for 60 years, everything from our federal transportation funding has been incentivized for widening roads," he said.

Kostelec also argues that widening roads doesn't help reduce commuting times or congestion, which continue to steadily grow.

Between 2000 and 2014, "the annual hours of congestion per auto commuter in Ada County rose from 28 hours to 37 hours, or 33 percent," Kolstelec said.

The annual congestion cost per auto commuter, how much fuel and car maintenance cost drivers during their commutes, in Ada County rose from $500 a year to more than $800 a year when delay hours and costs were growing.

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In 2017, 38 pedestrians were killed by vehicles in Idaho, including 6 that were 15 years old or younger, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Gibson said city planners should design more roadways with the most vulnerable people in mind, such as those in wheelchairs. There are already great examples in Boise, she said, including downtown, Hyde Park and Central Addition.

ACHD planners have shown they are receptive to the road-widening opposition and community feedback on any road project, such as backing off those plans for 9-lane State Street that the community and the highway district weren't fond of.

"We always encourage and invite the public to take part in the decisions that we make and planning," Natalie Shaver, a spokesperson for ACHD, said.

Shaver says that people can voice their opinions through the planning process on single projects or long-term plans during public meetings if they have any concerns or criticisms.

The City of Boise does have a plan to make roadways safer for bicyclists and pedestrians with the Transportation Action Plan.

Mike Journee, a spokesperson for the City of Boise, says the plan is just a "philosophy of how we want our city streets to look like at some point in the future."

The plan would narrow roads to reduce the number of drivers that speed, improve crosswalks, add protected bike lanes, plan medians with trees, and add chicanes (slight turns on a straight road to slow vehicles) in neighborhood streets.

Putting the plan into action requires cooperation with ACHD since the Highway Department has control over the valley's roads and the city only owns and controls a few streets in downtown Boise, which is a challenge for the city, Journee says, since the city has to separate its land use and development plans from how it wants its streets to be designed.

The Transportation Action Plan has no set date to be completed but is something that the city and ACHD use as a lens for the two groups to look through when planning out roadwork, according to Journee.

While Boise does have a long-term vision for how streets are planned in the city, they can only nudge and suggest to ACHD how to plan their projects.