Has Boise-area traffic really returned to normal since lockdown? Check out this data
The Treasure Valley may still be locked in battle with the coronavirus, but you’d hardly know it from all the traffic on local roads.
Remember the virus scare and Gov. Brad Little’s stay-at-home order in March and April? Commuting plunged. Gasoline prices too. Air quality improved. Downtown Boise streets were mostly empty. You could find parking spaces.
There was much talk that working at home was here to stay, with permanently reduced traffic. There’s still talk of that. But traffic data from the Ada County Highway District and the Idaho Transportation Department show that driving has rebounded to pre-COVID-19 levels on some highways, while it remains 12% to 25% below normal on principal commuter routes to downtown Boise.
The new normal has emerged. In some places, it is little different from the old. For downtown Boise, it is much different. More on that later. First, let’s review the data.
ACHD: Traffic has almost completely recovered
The Ada County Highway District did not track traffic volumes through COVID-19 shutdowns on some of its busiest roads, a spokesperson told the Statesman, as technicians were deemed non-essential during the stay-at-home order.
It still tracked numbers at some locations, however. ACHD shared data with the Statesman for the busiest non-Interstate highways in the county. The data covered two measuring stations each along Eagle Road (State Highway 55) and Meridian Road (State Highway 69) and one spot on State Street (State Highway 44).
The data show that traffic on those streets has almost completely recovered.
On Eagle Road at River Valley Street, halfway between Fairview Avenue and Ustick Road, traffic on June 23 reached 47,278 vehicles per day, 98% of the 48,294 average from Feb. 25 through March 10.
On Meridian Road (State Highway 69) at Victory Road, daily traffic actually increased 1%, to 32,835 on June 2 from 32,494 vehicles in late February/early March.
On State Street west of Glenwood Street in Northwest Boise, traffic on June 2 totaled 32,835 vehicles, 99% of the late February/early March average.
ITD: Traffic down by one-eighth to one-fourth
The Statesman looked at data for the county’s federal highways: I-84, the I-184 Connector and Chinden Boulevard (U.S. 20-26). The data shows that traffic has rebounded but remains significantly below last winter’s levels.
Take I-84. Daily road numbers from ITD, tracked by a permanent roadside system known as an automatic traffic recorder, or ATR, show that more than nearly 160,000 cars traveled on I-84 near Five Mile Road, one of the busiest spots for cars near Boise, on Tuesday, March 10.
One week later, March 17, the city of Boise closed many of its buildings to the public and Idaho’s public health districts announced the state’s ninth virus case. I-84 at Five Mile traffic fell to 131,943 vehicles, a Christmas-week level. On March 24, one day before Gov. Brad Little ordered Idahoans to stay home, only 105,863 cars were counted.
The next Tuesday, March 31, saw the number of cars hit its low point: 88,655 vehicles.
Numbers slowly crept up. By June 30, the count reached 142,149. That’s 88% of the pre-COVID-19 level.
Traffic on the I-184 Connector, the main route to downtown for commuters from the west, fell 24%, from 98,667 vehicles on March 3 to 75,180 on July 28. That has brought speedier commutes with fewer, and shorter, traffic jams.
Traffic on Chinden Boulevard, another route to downtown, fell 25%, from 30,279 to 22,734.
Downtown garages: usage falls by half or more
Here’s where the virus still takes a heavy toll: the downtown parking garages owned by the Capital City Development Corp., Boise’s urban-renewal agency.
CCDC says garage occupancy is consistently much lower than what it was before the pandemic kept people home. Many people use CCDC’s six garages as a place to park while they work in offices, shop in local stores or attend events downtown.
CCDC has 3,179 spaces. At noon on March 10, 67% were occupied. A week later, just 37% were.
As businesses closed and restaurants were no longer allowed to have patrons eat in their dining rooms, numbers dropped even more. On April 7, only 237 spaces — 8% of all spaces — were occupied.
The occupancy rate rose to 32% the week of June 16 only to fall back to 26% on July 29.
Implications: A Titanic, or business as usual?
ACHD says lower traffic makes construction work easier, and projects are proceeding as planned.
“If there are less cars on the road, it’s a better time to do construction, so we try and get as much done as we can,” Ryan Head, planning supervisor, said in a phone interview. “Obviously, there are always plenty of projects and work to be done, and the decreasing traffic hasn’t eliminated the need for a lot of the projects.”
ITD says it’s too early to say how the agency might be affected.
Reduced fuel sales during the lockdown meant reduced revenues from federal and state fuel taxes, but spokesperson Jake Melder said he wasn’t aware of changes to the department’s seven-year plan as a result of a drop in fuel tax collections.
It’s hard to know what the long-term impacts will be, because ITD is “still in the middle of the pandemic response,” he said.
As for downtown Boise?
Developers are moving ahead to finish apartment, office and other buildings planned before the pandemic, but they’re nervous about the future. Fewer downtown commuters may reduce the need for new office buildings.
“We’re on the Titanic. And we haven’t yet seen the full damage to the hull,” said David Wali, executive vice president of Gardner Co., for an Aug. 25 Statesman story about downtown construction.
But CCDC remains calm. No garage-related projects have been cut from the budget, and the falloff in patronage will have no effect on parking customers in the immediate future, spokesperson Jordyn Neerdaels told the Statesman.
Safety and structural projects planned for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, will continue, including a refurbishment project for CCDC’s oldest garage at 10th and Front street, 230 S 10th St, and repairs to the stair tower at the 9th and Front garage.
Non-critical projects may be delayed over the next few years, Neerdaels wrote in an email. Those include LED light installation and technology upgrades.
“As far as impacts to projects outside of the garages, there’s nothing at this point that this is affecting,” she said. “Projects in the future with a parking component may be impacted, but we just don’t know right now.”
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