If you drive South Cole Road, prepare for a year of delays — or pick a new route

Road work is about to begin on a major Boise arterial, and it will continue for most of the next year.

In mid-November, the Ada County Highway District plans to begin work to widen Cole Road from three lanes to five on the one-mile stretch between Interstate 84 and Franklin Road, spokeswoman Nicole DuBois said in an email.

The $6 million project also will add medians in several places, such as in front of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple, highway district designs show. Curbs, gutters, sidewalks and bike lanes will be added, too. The Cole-Franklin Road intersection will be widened.

The work is likely to clog traffic on an increasingly popular route — the only stretch of Cole between Victory and Ustick roads with fewer than five lanes. The road’s east side is expected to close first, and then the west side, ACHD Project Manager Ryan Cutler said. Occasionally, full closures could be necessary, Cutler said, though ACHD will try to ensure they happen at night.

More than 20,000 vehicles drive the I-84-to- Franklin stretch on an average day, according to ACHD counts. That’s similar to parts of other Boise arterials like Curtis Road, Franklin and Milwaukee Street. The district expects traffic to grow to 32,000 trips per day by 2040.

The project is one piece of a $70 million package of road improvements ACHD plans between now and next fall. The goal of many of these projects is to relieve traffic congestion. On top of extra lanes for cars, most widened roads will get bike lanes, some of them buffered by painted strips of pavement or physical barriers like curbs. Pedestrians will get signalized crossings and sidewalks, too.

Here’s a look five more big projects, as reported by the Idaho Statesman in August:

1. Cloverdale

The highway district has long planned to widen the section of Cloverdale Road that crosses Interstate 84. But it wasn’t at the top of the priority list until June, when a semi truck rear-ended an SUV that was stopped on I-84 for construction near the Cloverdale overpass, killing four and causing vehicles to burst into flames.

The Idaho Transportation Department, which owns the overpass, found that the fire damaged it badly enough that it must be rebuilt.

Since Cloverdale was scheduled for eventual widening anyway, the ITD board approved replacing the damaged two-lane overpass with a four-lane bridge. That decision pushed the highway district’s board to move up the timeline for expanding the stretches of Cloverdale that approach the overpass from the north and south.

Cost: $8 million for ITD’s overpass. At least $3 million to widen the road.

2. More Cloverdale

Cloverdale Road is likely to become a major north-south arterial in West Boise. The highway district plans to widen Cloverdale to five lanes — two in each direction, with a center turn lane — next year for the two miles from Ustick Road to Chinden Boulevard.

This will give Cloverdale five lanes for the five miles from Overland Road north to Chinden.

Next year’s project will include bike lanes, curbs, gutters and sidewalks on the Ustick-to-Chinden stretch. The plan calls for buffered bike lanes, which are separated from traffic by either painted or physical barriers like curbs, on the northern half between McMillan Road and Chinden, and a traffic light at Edna Street, halfway between Ustick and McMillan.

Cost: $5.5 million

3. Linder Road

Once surrounded by farm fields, the two-lane Linder Road has evolved into a busy north-south corridor for Northwest Meridian’s new neighborhoods of single-family homes. The highway district wants to add a center turn lane to the one-mile stretch from Ustick north to McMillan, as well as bike lanes, curbs, gutters, sidewalks and a signalized pedestrian crossing at Monument Street, a third of a mile south of McMillan.

Cost: $2.4 million

4. Overland walkers

The district plans to install sidewalks, curbs and gutters on Overland Road between Columbus Street and Federal Way — about three-quarters of a mile — in Boise’s Vista and Depot Bench neighborhoods.

This stretch of road also will get bike lanes when it’s resurfaced in a future year.

Cost: $1.2 million

5. The next State Street project

Over the next decade or so, the highway district is remaking State Street between Glenwood Street and 23rd Street. This year’s Veterans Memorial Parkway intersection reconstruction is the first phase.

The Collister project is next. The district plans to widen State Street to seven lanes between Lake Harbor and Wylie lanes. It also wants to re-align the south end of Collister Road so that it runs west of Terry’s State Street Saloon instead of on the bar’s east side. That change will make Collister meet State at roughly a 90-degree angle, not the 50-degree angle it has now.

Engineers say that will increase safety.

Cost: $10 million (including $8.9 million from the Federal Highway Administration).

For more information, visit the highway district’s website.

This story was originally published October 25, 2018 at 1:47 PM.