I’m with ya John, I’m embarrassed to use Garden City in my mailing address too. I ALWAYS say Boise. Couldn’t we make this real? Eliminate Garden City – half to Boise, half to Eagle!

The good Mayor’s recalcitrant behavior and condescending attitude are shameful. I’ll bet he never shared any of his toys when he was a kid either.

I’m a proud born-and-raised Boisean. I bike in Boise at least every weekday year-round. I have four kids and a beautiful wife. We have one car in the family. I enjoy a daily commute which allows me to be on the Greenbelt 85% of the way, helping to keep me safe from motorists buzzing to work. This is especially true in the winter months when I am biking in the dark more often. I respect pedestrians and follow proper Greenbelt and cycling etiquette and law.

It saddens and frustrates me to think that commuters from Boise to Eagle and vice versa are not afforded this same safe and convenient right on publicly owned land because the bureaucrats in Garden City, with the “Riverside Village” developer at its helm, are engaged in nothing more than a childish pissing contest.

Because of this arrogance and near-sightedness, my young, cycling children can’t enjoy a long, uninterrupted bike ride safe from motorists not always being attentive to their blind spots and things smaller than they from one end of our beautiful valley to the other because GC wants to hold on to its self-name, self-proclaimed “nature path” when it has no legal right to do so.

Grrrr.

PS – Thanks for the heads-up about the hearing on 12/15. I’ll be there with my helmet on.

He was the developer (and now Mayor) of the area adjacent to the BIKE PATH. They were responsible for creating a extension of the Green Belt per an agreement with the State of Idaho.

I guess you can say the Mayor Evans is a “man of his word” (it just happens to be in disagreement).

You’re WAY off, Brad.

As a matter of fact, the ONLY time I’ve ever been on the “Riverside Village” stretch of bike path is when I attended a protest rally and walked its length with my granddaughter. I may never travel that way again. Or if it were open to rolling through on my bike, I might… but my selfish desire isn’t motivating me in any way.

The reason I’m interested is:
1) I know cyclists who WOULD use that path regularly, if it weren’t illegal.
2) I can totally appreciate the vision of a contiguous bike path along the river, from Lucky Peak to Eagle and points beyond. If it existed – and I hope it does someday – I wouldn’t use it regularly, but I’d probably ride the entire length a few times each year.

You’ve got it all backwards, Brad. The selfish ones are Mayor Evans and his provincial group of supporters who have co-opted a public bike path and declared it their private “Nature Path,” at the expense of cyclists from Garden City and throughout the valley (who are welcome on Boise’s bike paths).

(I’m sympathetic to pedestrians who complain about bad bicyclist behavior. I’m with them! But we don’t solve the drunk-driving problem by closing the roads to all motorists, either.)