Comments on: Trolley Folly, Desire Named Street Car Still Festers

By: Steve Rinehart

Steve Rinehart — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 02:06:40 +0000

Agree. We have a new bus station. Let’s use it. Put some buses on downtown circulator routes, promote the service, see which routes work. Then modify the routes to serve the users. With the mayor’s street car / trolley you cannot modify the routes.

By: The Wolf

The Wolf — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 22:30:02 +0000

Why not create bus routes that mimic the proposed trolley routes, and see how many people would actually ride it?
If they’re popular, paint the buses to look like trolleys and save millions.
Tommy Alquist got his bus station, so let’s have a useful bus system.

By: Cece

Cece — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:25:57 +0000

I love the idea of a useful trolley but this trolley basically serves BSU students getting to and from their jobs as servers downtown then getting them to a from bars on the weekend. If they want to invest in a trolley it should run from downtown up the 184 to the 84 making stops at curtis then milwaulkee/franklin then eagle rd.to fairview then out to Meridian rd. Back to the frwy then finishing at Garrity and returning. Or at least something sensible and useful. I live in the downtown area and walk most of that “T” on foot. From 9th to Broadway is a 15 to 20 minute walk. Give me a break! I am also from San Diego and very familiar with the trolley as we used it very often. It is nothing like what Beitar is trying to create. His vision is like that of a toy train track, cute but useless.

By: erico49

erico49 — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 13:54:13 +0000

This statement made me laugh: “What you want downtown to look like? At one point someone had the vision to build the Greenbelt, same thing with the foothills,” he said. Thank God we built the foothills. Or maybe he meant built IN the foothills. No, that can’t be right either because every time a new foothills project comes up, the current residents pull the gate shut a little tighter behind them.

By: Dave Bieter SUCKS

Dave Bieter SUCKS — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 23:09:06 +0000

Bieter should get himself a human powered rickshaw and shuttle people around downtown himself if he is so insanely hot on the idea of a transportation “solution” more appropriate for Disneyland than Boise.

By: Yossarian_22

Yossarian_22 — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 20:07:26 +0000

I used to be a big supporter of a trolley system for Boise, but I can think of many other things we could use more. We are not in need of this downtown. We have other transportation needs that can be addressed for much cheaper than this. Our BUS system has issues that need addressed. We need railroad upgrades, that are being addressed, but it’s still the best long haul freight mode around. We could use a Canyon to Ada commuter train more than a toy trolley. SLC’s system is a success, but we are not them. There just isn’t enough buildup for it.

I do want to address the smear made in the comments that equate crime with rail systems. That is BUNK. Yes, the big cities with rail transit have major crime issues, but that has nothing to do with the existence of rail. Pride in one’s city with good living standards are attributed to attendance to particular values, not transit systems. Helsinki in Finland has rail transit and is NOT Chicago or NYC or Washington DC.

By: Steve Rinehart

Steve Rinehart — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 07:02:30 +0000

I have been following the occasional news about the “stakeholders” who have been meeting for the past year or so to steer this project. No one I can see in this comment thread is an official stakeholder, near as I can tell. Or anyone else I know. I guess this is because our stake is not big enough. We would just be paying for it. How much? The city’s consultant says over $10 per ride, in the best-case scenario. This is apparently OK with the mayor. Is it OK with you?

By: Idea

Idea — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 01:13:51 +0000

Here is an idea – let all those who voted for Mr Beiter pay for the trolley. And have the LID just cover the north end.

Bikeboy – Tommy Alquist is just the local face that does whatever his dad in SLC tells him to do. His dad in SLC has run out of ways to take advantage of public money give away like the free building foundation we gave them above the bus barn so he is now focused on Boise.

By: Bieter Biegone

Bieter Biegone — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 23:16:46 +0000

Anyone who thinks the development cost of this boondoggle will be $111,000,0000 has been going over to Huntington Oregon too often. And anyone who thinks the ridership will turn out as projected is constantly on the pipe.

Even cursory research states that these things always cost at least 50% more to build (don’t even think about the increase in operating costs) and the ridership is always at least 25% less. And the taxpayers are always stuck with the overages.

And anyone with rudimentary math skills can see the projected “revenue” at the highest end only comes up to $37 million (out of $111 million – riiiiggght) without the “municipal” help. Boise already puts in $8 million to VRT which ain’t going anywhere else if they want “transit” outside of the DT. I suppose they could always continue to raise taxes but at some point all the blood might be out of the turnip.

Ah well, when the populace keeps re electing these tools, they think they have mandates. The funniest is all the Bieter sycophants on the statesman comments who basically flame anyone who dares speak against Bieter then get totally exercised when the mayor and council approve building projects in their neighborhoods.

By: Voter

Voter — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:14:15 +0000

Public policy such as this should not be set by a “belief” in someones “mind”.

It should be set by a vote of those voters who will pay for it.

In this case the someone appears to have lost their mind.