BONNEVILLE COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) – A new high-capacity road could be in the cards for Bonneville County, but not everyone is happy about the proposed changes.
The population of Ammon and Idaho Falls is projected to grow to 175,887 households within the next 10 years. The Bonneville County Metropolitan Planning Organization (BMPO) says the growth poses a major challenge for city roads.
DKS Associates have conducted a high capacity roadway study by request of the BMPO. They have proposed a plan for a new high capacity road for 65th south, near a majority of growth in the county.
“Everybody who lives in the area has driven on 17th Street, You can see what happens with corridors that have to serve those high volumes in the future, but maybe weren’t originally designed for,” DKS Associates, transportation planning and traffic analysis lead Aaron Berger told Local News 8. “It can become problematic. So this this project is looking at how do we preserve existing corridors. So they can serve heavy traffic in the future as growth continues?”
The group’s current recommendation is to build up 65th South to a strategic arterial road. It would mean making it a multi-lane road with limited access points; such as driveways and entry points from neighborhoods.
The group also recommends possibly connecting 65th South to a future expressway.
The project has gained the attention and concern of hundreds of Bonneville County property owners. During Wednesday’s open house, several of them expressed concerns about the impact to agriculture in that area.
“That (proposed) expressway cuts our farm fields in half north and south,” one concerned property owner told the metropolitan planning organization. “We need to get equipment under that expressway in the future. Our widest equipment right now is 35 feet wide. We need probably 20 ft vertical clearance or we have no way to transport equipment from one field to the other. Even though they’re a quarter mile away from each other. In 15 years it’s probably going to be like 40 feet equipment.”
BMPO will take the feedback from this week’s meetings and will finalize the plans by the end of the year. Some of these plans, such as the expressway, are 25 to 30 years into the future.
