Boise says this road shows a spike in serious injury crashes. But why?
It’s probably not the first road Boiseans think of as dangerous.
Vista Avenue, the business-lined thoroughfare from the airport to downtown, saw a “sharp increase” in serious injury crashes in 2024 and 2025, according to the city of Boise.
Bre Brush, a senior policy adviser in the mayor’s office, mentioned the smattering of cases in a joint meeting between Boise and the Ada County Highway District in early April. The area stands out on a map, she told the Statesman in a later interview, with red and orange dots illuminating incidents along the road.
Vista saw six serious injury crashes in 2024, spokesperson Maria Ortega said in an email. There were four in 2025, according to a screenshot of a chart shared with the Statesman.
That comes after just three in 2023 and two in 2022, though there were five serious injury crashes in 2021.
Combined, there were 20 serious injury crashes reported in the past five years (4 per year) and 14 in the six years before that (2.3 per year).
Brush noticed clusters at two intersections, Vista and Overland Road, where Albertsons looms kitty-corner from Jimmy John’s, and again at Cassia and Vista.
The question, though, is why?
“It’s hard to say,” said Brush, listing potential factors other than distracted or impaired driving. It’s a well-trafficked direct route to downtown and the airport, there are a decent number of pedestrians and there’s a lot of commercial activity, she said.
The speed limit is mostly 35 mph.
“It just experiences a little bit more pressure and more activity,” Brush said. “Wherever you have that, you’re likely to have crashes as well.”
There also have been a couple fatality crashes, Brush said. For example, a motorcyclist died in August 2025 after experiencing an apparent medical emergency and crashing, according to previous Statesman reporting. The motorcyclist went off the road at the intersection of Lemhi Street and Vista.
Part of the challenge in addressing the Vista trend is that other roads, like parallel-running Orchard Street, have obvious infrastructure problems like gaps in sidewalks, Brush said. Vista doesn’t possess those blaring red flags. “I want to figure out what is going on there,” she said.
The Ada County Highway District’s traffic engineering team hasn’t identified a specific trend along that corridor, district spokesperson Rachel Bjornestad said.
The highway district is working on a project to widen sidewalks, replace outdated traffic signals, and repave and narrow lanes along Vista between Overland and Rose Hill Street. The project, which will also remove the free-running right turn at Overland in exchange for a traditional lane, is expected to start construction in early 2027, Bjornestad said. The project is not in response to crashes, she said.
Still, Vista isn’t the top concern for crashes in the city. Fairview Avenue is Boise’s “highest injury corridor,” the city said earlier this year.
