EAGLE, Idaho — The Idaho Transportation Department wants the community to give feedback about possible changes to Eagle Road.
ITD hosted its first open house about the two-year Eagle Road Safety Awareness Pilot Project Tuesday evening. There is another open house scheduled from 5-7 p.m. Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn in Eagle.
The project is set to impact Eagle Road from Interstate 84 to State Highway 44 starting this fall. ITD would add safety signs along a 7-mile stretch of the highway.
"We want to find out what the community that uses this corridor, which has 60,000 cars a day or so that travel up in down it, we want to find out what they think and what their thoughts are," transportation program manager Vincent Trimboli said.
The agency would also get rid of left turns at roughly half of the intersections without traffic signals. Starting this spring, the agency also plans on dropping the speed limit from 55 to 45 mph during peak traffic times.
The overall goal is to improve safety. Trimboli said there were 2,000 crashes between 2019 and 2023, which resulted in hundreds of injuries and four deaths.
"I actually don't have any issue with any of the changes," said Jennifer Carter, "as long as they can speed things up or help with the traffic. Safer is always better."
Greg Edgmon, who heard about the project for the first time Wednesday, went back and forth.
"[The project] sounds like it would probably help," he said. "But the only thing is reducing the speed, that means it also takes potentially longer to get to where you're going."
ITD will gather data during the two-year project create permanent changes, Trimboli said. It will go forward regardless. However, the specifics may change depending on feedback.
People who cannot make it to the open houses can submit comments online through Sep. 11.