“Any way you cut it, the public is getting billed to facilitate development.”….Um, Yeah. Those are called taxes. They have been around for a while now (the better part of three thousand years in one way or another). When we as citizens decide to live somewhere we make a compact with the local society to pay our way and do our part to help civilization keep running. If you decide that the cost of participating in that society is too great, then you are free to leave.

Dave, I’m all for your efforts to get the Depot open and know that some of your causes are quite worthy, but in this I have a hard time seeing your efforts here as anything but nitpicking.

EDITOR NOTE–Those guys originally promised to buy the bridge in order to get council approval. They backed out midstream (pun intended) and now we ALL pay so they can develop. Without the bridge, no houses.

The bridge will not solve the traffic problems on Warm Springs Avenue. The bridge will create traffic problems on Park Center. The bridge is a subsidy of the Harris Ranch developers. I would rather not help the developer make money. Harris Ranch’s growth combined with the new East Junior High School insures the end of that area as a rural, semi wild habitat.

Building new roads and new bridges will not cure traffic problems when the population keeps growning. At some point we will run out land to build roads and parking lots. Shall we wait until everything is paved over before figuring out what “smarth growth” really means?

Let me first disclose why I am 100% against this bridge. 15% because I live near parkcenter blvd and do not want increased traffic by my home, and 85% because this a typical example of how citizens subsidize developers, and how eager politicians bend to every opportunity to increase their tax base and pander to wealthy developers.

This $21M bridge will go through a habitat so sensitive I am not allowed to ride my bike through it, yet when money is to be made, they will rip through with a 5 lane psuedo-highway.

I would encorage people to attend the meeting or send comments in advance and encourage our elected leaders to just say no.

Dave… I clearly remember that the developer was going to pay for the new East bridge. (How is it that such agreements can be so easily “weaseled” out of at a later date? Didn’t ACHD get a signed copy? Who’s representing the taxpayers?!!?)

Last weekend I rode my motorsickle through Baker, Oregon (and many quaint little hamlets in between here and there). I thought to myself, “This looks like a nice place to live, and it has pretty much everything I would need.” Although I was born in Boise, and have lived here my whole life, maybe at this point I’m a Baker guy living in L.A.-junior. If it weren’t for my need for gainful employment, I could very realistically be looking for (literally) greener pastures.

It’s extremely frustrating. While I’m generally very conservative, and AS A RULE respect the property owner’s right to do what he wants with his land… there is no denying that we affect each others’ quality of life with our land-use choices.

That’s why we don’t have a pig farm just upwind. Or a coal-fired or gas-fired power plant looming on the horizon.

If a multi-generation farming family sells their spearmint field and a week later the mint is being plowed under to make way for more crackerboxes… it has an impact on everybody who has enjoyed the heavenly scent of that spearmint as they’ve gone by. How do you assign a value to that, or determine the proper “impact fee”?

All our current crop of “elected representatives” have campaigned on “sensible growth” platforms, I’m guessing. If what we are seeing under their watch is “sensible growth,” I’m probably ready to vote for some ANTI-GROWTH candidates… not because I believe growth can or should be stopped, but because “sensible growth” ain’t makin’ it for me.

Okay… I’ll relinquish the soapbox for now.

I will not try to speak for anyone outside of my circle of family and friends. When we chose to STAY in Idaho, our birthplace, we did not anticipate, or want the raBid growth this area has suffered. One reliable source is quoted as saying we have been invaded to the tune of a forty percent population increase in JUST THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS.
Now if we WANTED and APPROVED of all these refugees crowding us and changing our way of life, MAYBE, just MAYBE we would be more receptive to subsidizing them and their carpetbagging developers. “They” keep changing the rules, and taxing (sticking it to) us in our home state. I would like to voluntarily choose my charitable contributions without having our local big brother extort my “contributions.”
To follow the logic of some newbies, the holocaust, (IF it occurred at all) must have been the fault of the Jewish victims. If Idaho’s developers, HOUSE builders and politicians are well meaning innocents, Hitler and his Nazis were too. The Nazis also called their attempted extermination of entire races “progress.”
I would rather see my taxes raised again to subsidize Micron a bit MORE so they can move lock stock and tea kettle to communist China sooner.
Jon, thank you for granting me PERMISSION to leave my birthplace. Were you born into royalty, divintiy or do you just suffer from delusions of grandeur?
Dog: Wildlife? We don’t need no stinking wildlife> That’s what we have zoos and city parks for, eh?

Consider yourself either ten years too late on this issue because that’s when the land was annexed into Boise, or 20 years too late because that’s when Parkcenter Blvd. was built out towards the river making a bridge there a done deal sooner or later.

I look forward to seeing a little relief on the Warm Springs Ave. traffic. And given that ACHD has spent $50 million in Boise residents’ taxes on projects outside of Boise over the past eight years I think $20 million is a fine start at payback. As for the sensitive wildlife habitat north of the river, folks that was a sawmill until just a few years ago.

If you want to blame anyone for the taxpayer’s cost on this bridge, you must blame ACHD.

Harris Ranch was supposed to pay for this bridge 10 years ago. They would be reimbursed by the impact fees paid to ACHD over time for each house. There was an agreement to that effect, However, I do believe that the ACHD, in their perfidy and incompetence never executed it. Harris Ranch got frustrated due to all the jerking around by ACHD and pulled out until recently.

Consequently the bridge did not get built for 6-9 million and now the costs have escalated by 3. (If anyone thinks the end price will be $21 million, I have a bridge I can sell you.)

That bridge has been anticipated for over 30 years. That’s why Parkcenter is sized the way it is.

What we should all be asking ourselves is why do we have the ACHD? It builds roads no one wants, doesn’t build roads that are needed and in general treats citizens like scum through it’s 5 spokesmouths that we are paying for while our so called elected commissioners hide away in the corner.

There is a ULI project happening in June or July (we’re paying for that too) and the only groups ACHD wants them to speak with are other government groups, developers and other business interests.

Make your voices heard. Call ACHD and tell them you want to see more broad representation. There is a reason that ACHD is the only county wide highway district in the world. It’s because when others have visited to see how it operates, they see it DOESN’T work and that’s why it’s never been duplicated. Sure there would be problems without ACHD but how can they be worse?

Scott?

That is a little like those folks with river front property in Eagle, that didn’t want to be “too close” to the river; isn’t it?

30 years ago, highway 21 ran on the north side of the Boise River from the center of Boise to Lucky Peak Reservoir, toward Idaho City and beyond. That meant all the traffic from this corner of the state heading to and from central Idaho traveled on Warm Springs Ave. When the Parkcenter Development, and Parkcenter Blvd were put in, it made sense to think about rerouting Hwy 21 onto Parkcenter, and putting in the East Parkcenter Bridge (EPB) to take some of the load off urban Warm Springs.

Then Micron Happened. Federal Way was buffed out to 4/5 lanes south to Gowen. Gowen was extended east to the Boise River near diversion dam where a new bridge was installed across the Boise River. With that, the improved east west Highway 21 corridor around urban Warm Springs was completed. And, the need for the EPB as an integral part of the east west corridor evaporated.

Now the only purpose of the EPB is to service development in the Barber Valley. In fact, the testimony by Skyline at the Cliffs’ hearing, and Brighton at their neighbor hood meetings, is that they will endeavor, by whatever means, including several “restrictive” roundabouts between Highway 21 and Harris Ranch, to discourage traffic east of Harris Ranch / Brighton from using the Warm Springs east of the proposed bridge. That means that the purpose of the EPB is reduced to servicing Harris Ranch/Brighton and ONLY Harris Ranch/Brighton!

We are talking about a $21+ million bridge for about 3000 houses. Clippity is right. Every homeowner in Ada County will be charged $170+ to build the EPB. That is a subsidy on the part of Ada County taxpayers of about $6,700 per house in Harris Ranch. Keep in mind that number works backwards as well. By that I mean $6,700 is what the piddling little impact fee would be if the bridge were charged to the 3,000 or so $400,000+ houses planned for Harris Ranch.

The Mayor, Council, and ACHD may want the east end developed, but the east end does not NEED to be developed. And, given the disasters that permeate the rest of the county’s traffic situation, State, Eagle Road, Meridian’s Core, Amity, Victory, Harrison, 36th, Hill, Franklin, and on and on and on, I am hard pressed to put the EPB at priority number one. Priority 1001 is more like it.

Then there is the disastrous precedent of ACHD paying for the bridge after Harris Ranch defaulted on their contract to build it with their own funds. Currently, Avimor, M3, Kastera, et al west of Boise have signed a compact offering to pay $130 million to improve infrastructure on Highway 55 in order to move their projects forward. This leads to a couple of questions. Why do they have to pay upfront while Harris Ranch gets a free ride? Or, do M3 and the others have to simply wait a couple of years before ACHD/ITD forgets about the deal, and again puts the screws to their constituents for the growth related infrastructure costs? One way or the other, someone is getting cheated.

It is time for some serious questions and investigations into this debacle. Here is your assignment. Sometime today, call each of the following numbers and demand to know what they are doing to stop the spending of $170 or more of your money on a project that will benefit very few people.

________________________________________________

John Frandon, ACHD, 387.6110, http://www.achd.ada.id.us/
Larry Wasden, Idaho State Attorney General, 208 334-2400, www2.state.id.us/ag/
Dave Bieter, Boise Mayor, 384-4422, http://www.cityofboise.org
City Council, 384-4410, http://www.cityofboise.org

Boise Weekly NEWS EDITOR Shea Andersen 344-2055, http://www.boiseweekly.com
Idaho Statesman, Editor and vice president, Vicki S. Gowler, (208) 377-6403, http://www.idahostatesman.com

Channel 6, 208-381-6650, http://www.todays6.com
Channel 7, 321-5614. http://www.ktvb.com
Channel 2, 489.1264, http://www.2news.tv
Channel 12, 466.1200, http://www.ktrv.com

Thanks Tony that was insightful as usual. First I want to note my bias, I’ve been working to get the EPB for awhile and I live off Warm Springs near the M&W. But I don’t disagree with all of what you wrote. I do disagree that the need for the east/west route evaporated. Like most things the use has increased even with the highway 21 bridge.

There’s a tremendous recreational use particularly through the summer months in that direction. The big geographic issue that has been ignored thus far in these comments is the narrow and obnoxious space between the mesa/tablerock and the river making Warm Springs undesirable as the main route. As Sara points out, they made Parkcenter a broad 5 lane roadway because it couldn’t be done cheaply on the other side. Of course that requires the bridges, the first of which was finished about a decade ago.

But the EPB has been mired in the Harris Ranch debacle in an effort to get the development to pony up some of the cost. Nobody got it in writing though and when Bureau of Rec insisted on 4 different designs at several hundred thousand dollars, Harris Ranch pulled the plug.

I would also point out that the difference in price cited by the Guardian is also the difference between a two lane and a four lane bridge. One of the most ridiculous aspects of the initial negotiations was that they were only talking the cost associated with a 2 lane bridge which would have been obsolete before it was constructed.

From someone that rides Warm Springs everyday, the need is there. But I agree that Harris Ranch should be paying alot more than it is to get her done.

I’m waiting to hear if the Eagle city council gave their stamp of approval to the 20,000 additional residents north of town. The air is already unbreathable and even if the council gets 100% disapproval from people attending meetings or writing in, they will do as they want. If the county commissioners can stop this insanity I wish they would. I considered moving to L.A. 30 years ago and decided I didn’t want bad air and freeway driving as part of my life so I returned to Boise. Now I can’t go outside and breathe and Eagle Road is so screwed up with traffic that I refuse to shop at any store located on it.

When will the deciders wise up to quality of life issues?

Gee Tony Jones

I wish I would have given that speech 35 years ago before you and all of the folk out east of me moved in..

Talk about a NIMBY

Jr:

Your BoCC opinion was incontrovertibly true before Paul Woods was elected (saving us from yet more havoc and even higher taxes had the Queen continued to reign). Woods is a proponent of growth paying for itself, instead of developers dumping the infrastructure bill on us, and has voted that way in the few instances which have come up since January.

Yzaguirre is running again and I expect we all remember he just squeaked by Wilson…which leads me to endorse your second point. People need to speak up. Particularly since Y has to run again and needs every vote, he’s likely to be more responsive on everything, at least pre-election. (I have acquaintances who think that since they’re Boise residents they can’t vote in BoCC elections…for real.)

I have skimmed through all of the comments above and have determined that the narrow section of Warm Springs will NOT be closed when the East Park Center Bridge is complete, thus allowing traffic to go through to East Boise via Warm Springs Blvd. Is this true? My friend is considering the purchase of a home that backs up to Park Center Blvd. The traffic noise and pollution is a concern to him. There was a time when the plan was to close the narrow section of Warm Springs permanently and reroute the Harris Ranch traffic over the new East Parkcenter bridge to the blvd. to reduce the traffic on historic Warm Springs Blvd.