BOISE COUNTY, Idaho — It can really be the taste of reality after a weekend away in Idaho’s high country, sitting in traffic at Banks-Lowman road on Highway 55.
“It's something that we've spent a lot of time here at the Idaho Transportation Department and here in District three, working with the community up there,” said Vince Trimboli, a project manager with ITD.
Trimboli presented a $4million proposal that includes making a major upgrade to the busy Highway 55 intersection, a traffic signal.
“It's really for developing the best idea and then designing it. There is no funding for construction of the long term solution at this point. First, we have to decide what it might be and how do we get there. There's a lot of investigation, environmental investigation, material investigation, geotech work, as well as looking at what that signalization might be there at that intersection. So it's a long term project, 3 to 4 years to develop a long term solution there,” Trimboli said.
The project isn’t based on just a few weekends of major traffic. High impact road travel is increasing as Idaho continue to grows.
“A few years ago, we were flagging three times a year. Two years ago, we flagged eight times. This last summer we flagged 10 times,” Trimboli said.
The project being explored is not just a traffic signal. ITD is looking to replace and widen the SH-55 bridge over the South Fork Payette River, replace and widen the Boise County bridge over the North Fork Payette River and improve vehicle sight distance. The project also will install an adaptive advance warning system approaching the intersection in both directions of SH-55. To be clear, again, no money is allocated for construction just yet.
Between now and a final project decision, ITD is also working on short term plans to help Banks-Lowman traffic.
“We will develop a concept for a temporary or an interim signal between now and the time that something long term is built there. And our goal is to put that into place next summer. What that is, we don't know yet. Our plan internally, through our own staff over the next three months is to kind of develop what that concept might look like,” Trimboli said.
The temporary solution to replace flaggers is with safety in mind.
“Yeah it's unsafe to have people on the roadway. It works. But is there a way that we can continue to get what we're getting right now through Flaggers with some sort of a temporary signalized option,” Trimboli said.
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