Challenge

Three organizations are responsible for transportation and livability in downtown Boise: the Ada County Highway District (ACHD), the City of Boise, and the Capital City Development Corporation (CCDC), the downtown urban renewal agency. While these agencies often collaborate and cooperate, they also each have their own individual plans for project work, such as roadway improvements and maintenance (ACHD), utility work (City of Boise), streetscape and beautification projects (CCDC), and sidewalk and bicycle facility projects (any of the agencies). The result of this arrangement is that an individual street or area within the downtown may experience construction for one purpose, and after a short period of time, undergo work by another agency for a different purpose. This leads to repeated impacts to businesses and travelers within the downtown, as well as lost opportunities to combine work and achieve cost efficiencies.

In addition, the downtown core lacked a comprehensive and detailed bicycle network plan that all of the agencies together could work to implement as other roadway improvement and maintenance projects are being completed.

Solution

Kittelson worked collaboratively with the three agencies to bring their existing plans together and revise them into a consistent format that provides a complete, logical, and cost- and time-efficient approach to implementing projects in the downtown area. This led to the development of a 5 year consolidated and programmed implementation plan for roadway, utility, streetscape, and pedestrian/bicycle projects in downtown Boise.

Downtown Boise Implementation Plan