Ever heard of Frogger or Crossy Roads? This is the human version of it being conducted by the UI Pokemon 101 class. They needed some test subjects, so they thought BSU would kindly lend a hand.
https://www.uidaho.edu/news/news-articles/news-releases/2016-july/072216-pokemon

Traffic safety involves 4 E’s….ACHD is doing the Engineering because Boise is not doing the enforcement when really both of them should be doing the Education and Encouragement.

This BG article may be a first. Congrats on the embedded video!

Why would Boise City oppose this fence? I would think that it would be in the best safety interest of all users, drivers, students, Boise Police Department. Does nearby St. Luke’s Hospital emergency department have an opinion?

The Greenbelt tunnels under the roadway will get more use and more frequent use by the BSU students. Just a slightly longer walk.

BSU may find that they will need to pay for a subway system to shuttle students if this causes pushback from the student-tenants in their leased buildings.

Oh Well, the Public Trough is very deep.

ACHD had a chance to fix that mess back in the early 90s with the CUB interchange (Capitol, University, Boise Ave.). Google it. For some reasons unknown to me they dropped the project. One reason I do recall, nimbys at the intersection of University and Capitol adamantly opposed it. Frustratingly, of the 4 corners, only Papa Joe’s remains from the 90s. I can’t remember if Papa Joe’s was one of the opposition.

Anyway, jaywalking isn’t just on Capitol, it’s Broadway and all over downtown. And they’re becoming more blatant. I hate to see BPD start enforcing it, because I do it too, but I actually look before I jaywalk.

Look at the Saturday market. I can’t believe grown adults need crossing guards, but they do.

Video needs Frogger music mixed in.

If this is a big enough issue to need a solution, then one of the potential solutions that should be on the table should be a pedestrian stoplight.

EDITOR NOTE–Based on the new image, it appears there is nothing left on the table to discuss. The fence is nearly completed.

Previously ACHD added a cross walk for County employees crossing 3rd street… literally feet away from 2 normal working crosswalks. C. Baker was in BIG support of installing that crosswalk.

Previously ACHD installed what has to be the stupidest and most dangerous crosswalks in the county, for St. Luke’s employees to cross Idaho Street & Warm Springs instead of directing employees to cross at the existing 1st Street crosswalk.

ACHD is inconsistent with their installation of crosswalks to say the least: around schools, around popular areas, and new construction.

Then when someone gets killed, they they do something about it- even then they are inconsistent and hose it up such as the crosswalks on ParkCenter Blvd after a couple was killed in 2008.
No standard policy.
Inconsistent.
Nonsense.

BPD enforcing jaywalking? Right. Hello, Downtown, is that you?

Nope. It’s gonna take a dead frog!

The irony is that there are much more deadly and dangerous roads like Fairview where the motoring equivalent of a fence (e.g. a median) is a non-starter in the eyes of ACHD and others who say they are all about safety. Why are they willing to shut down pedestrians moving freely while vehicles are allowed to move unabated across roads and driveways throughout the Valley?

Eliminate cars from the entire downtown area. This would solve thousands of problems at once. Cars are the problem, walking and biking is the solution.

Jay Walker, haha, not sure if you’re serious or not. Eliminating cars downtown would indeed solve the walking problem because 90%+ of the people walking around downtown GOT THERE BY CAR.

Speckled Hen, ACHD did want to put medians on Fairview, the business owners cried foul. Boise business owners think Boiseans are too lazy to go up a ways and make a u-turn.

The problem I have (and probably the city’s as well) with the pedestrian fence is it’s the explicitly “auto-oriented” solution. People are going where you don’t want them to, at the expense of auto traffic? Build a barrier. Maybe we should be asking why there’s a 6-lane highway dividing two relatively pedestrian friendly areas. The construction of additional apartments didn’t create this problem, it simply made it more visible.

Consider looking at it this way – the greenbelt underpass is actually quite far away, adding say ~5 minutes to your walk, similar to the University crossing (a ridiculous 4-stage crossing). You can argue that 5 minutes here and there doesn’t matter since they’re walking anyway, but the same argument (minutes of delay!) is used to spend millions on road construction & widening, or to prevent stop bike lanes & pedestrian crossings from going in (if I remember, one of the arguments against the protected bike lane demonstration in 2014 was the additional seconds of delay).

This is the reason why people jaywalk – because we build bad pedestrian infrastructure or have points of bad connectivity, and people logically take shortcuts. Most of the time, the shortcut works, and occasionally, tragically, it doesn’t. All the education & enforcement in the world isn’t going to stop this, it never has (this applies to to auto traffic, as well). The Engineering needs to be better and more appropriately applied, especially in an already pedestrian heavy area. Perhaps an additional signal could be installed, at Sherwood, or Island, or both? The spacing there isn’t too different from the downtown block spacing, and that works well enough for everyone.

If people want to play in traffic let them. Seems like this is a self resolving problem…