‘It is too fast’: Meridian officials slam Idaho Transportation Department over Eagle Road
An Idaho Transportation Department engineer told the Meridian City Council that Eagle Road does not need a speed limit reduction.
A couple of council members were not buying it. They lashed out at ITD over its stance on the busy north-south road.
Nearly two months ago, the council heard from Laurie Boesch, the mother of a young woman who died in a crash on Eagle Road last year. Boesch’s family members have become advocates for change on the road, and on June 28, she and others begged the City Council to help lower the speed limit “before another Idaho family has to live through” the experience of losing a loved one.
Boesch’s words still weighed heavily on the minds of Meridian City Council members Liz Strader and Joe Borton at a council meeting Tuesday.
“We do have neighborhoods, we do have school, we do have huge shopping districts,” Strader said to the engineer, Caleb Lakey. “Your analysis is that people are going the speed limit it’s meant to be, so we don’t see a problem. But from what I have heard, my community does have a problem, because we now have a huge city with a highway running through it at speeds that are dangerous.”
Lakey, who gave a presentation to the council, said that based on a speed study ITD conducted, most vehicles travel near the Eagle Road (Idaho 55) speed limit, which is 55 mph. He said determining a highway speed limit is based on federal regulations, and a combination of traffic flow and the business needs in the area.
“(Idaho 55) really serves as a prime in north/south connector in the valley,” Lakey said. “It was designed that way, and many of the features of the highway are for the purpose of moving traffic sources north and south.”
Lakey said he concluded that a speed limit reduction was not necessary, but he said ITD planned to put together a work group to study Eagle Road’s Meridian corridor nonetheless.
That was not good enough for Borton, who said Eagle Road “is absolutely too fast.”
“Speed is 100% a factor in crashes, it is just an obvious truth,” he said. “It is too fast for the way it is designed and for the way it is built out. I would think the community that this highway is ripping through, its perspective on that would be paramount.”
Boesch, Strader and other supporters of a speed limit reduction have said that every city in Idaho with a state highway going through it, except Meridian, has seen speed limits drop.
But Jillian Garrigues, spokesperson for ITD, told the Idaho Statesman that there are some stretches of highway with 50- to 55-mph speed limits through other cities, including Idaho 44 (State Street) from Idaho 16 through Eagle, and U.S. 20/26 from I-84 in Caldwell heading east to the start of Garden City.
The problem, Lakey said, is that Eagle Road was built as the Treasure Valley’s main north/south connection in the 1990s, well before thousands of new homes and businesses filled in along the highway in Meridian. Without another major north/south road in the area, commuters rely on it heavily, and shoppers and families driving to businesses and schools also navigate the road — the area’s busiest thoroughfare that isn’t an interstate.
But ITD officials still don’t see the need to lower the speed limit, something the agency called a “trade-off.”
That “trade-off” comes at the sacrifice of Meridian’s children and safety, Strader said.
“Whoever gets killed after Aug. 23 will suffer at the hands of the glacial pace of government,” Borton said.
Kess Boesch, 21, died in a crash on Nov. 13. Her boyfriend, Jordan Plaster, was driving. He made a left turn just before 4 p.m. from Eagle Road to enter a side street to approach the Hobby Lobby. A southbound pickup truck traveling 53 mph hit them.
Laurie Boesch said she blames ITD for her daughter’s death because of the speed limit on the business-centered highway. Borton said the time to act is now.
“Again, it’s maybe not your fault in this, but between now and when decisions get made, we’re gonna watch a slow, grinding process in what’s an obvious problem,” Borton told Lakey.
ITD will conduct a corridor operational study on Eagle Road from Chinden Boulevard to Interstate 84, Lakey said. The department plans to bring those findings to the city when they are completed.
Lakey also said he hopes the Idaho 16 extension project west of Eagle Road will help alleviate some north-south traffic congestion, though that highway is not expected to be done until 2024.
