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Transportation board to conclude summer district tours

The Idaho Transportation Board will embark on its final district tour of the year next week when it visits District 4. The focus of the tour will be on the Wood River Valley. Activities include visiting Friedman Memorial Airport and the Mountain Rides facilities. The board also will hear about highway projects in the area.

The tour will end in Twin Falls at the Chobani yogurt plant that is under construction. Touring the yogurt plant builds on a priority of this year’s district tours in which board members learn about economic issues in the respective regions and visit with major employers.

Board agenda items

Overlegal permitting process
ITD staff members will brief the board on the overlegal permit process at the monthly business meeting in Shoshone Thursday.

Idaho law authorizes ITD to issue an overlegal permit to the owner or operator for any vehicle/load having a greater weight or size than normally permitted on highways and bridges for which it has jurisdiction. ITD issues 65,000-67,000 overlegal permits annually. Overlegal permits have specific conditions and requirements for the safe and efficient movement of commerce on Idaho highways and bridges.

Access control map
In August, the board approved revisions to the Rules Governing Highway Right-of-Way Encroachments on State Rights-of-Way, with an effective date of Oct.1. The revised rule requires that all routes on the state highway system be classified into one of four hierarchical rating categories.

The Investment Corridor Analysis Planning System, or ICAPS, is being developed as a planning tool for the continuing evolution toward a more data-driven, performance-based approach to highway planning. ICAPS assesses user experience on state highways based on the three elements of the department’s mission statement: safety, mobility and economic opportunity. Four data sets have been selected to serve as proxies for the highway user experience. Those four areas were combined into an overall hierarchies and priorities map that classifies routes as:

Interstate
Statewide
Regional
District

Although the board has not adopted or approved ICAPS, the system was used to develop the access control map, which is required as part of the rule revision. The board will be asked to approve the map as the basis of the highway route and segment classifications prescribed by the revised rule.

Fiscal Year 2013-17 Idaho Transportation Investment Program
ITD staff members presented the draft FY2013-17 Idaho Transportation Investment Program (ITIP) to the board at a workshop in June and again at its July meeting. With board concurrence, the draft document was available for public review and comment from July 30 through Aug. 30.

In addition to issuing a news release about the public comment period, newspaper ads were placed in most of the daily and weekly newspapers. A number of groups, such as the metropolitan planning organizations, the Associated General Contractors of Idaho and the Native American Tribes in Idaho were notified of the review and comment period by e-mail.

Of the 44 ITIP comments received, 37 were in response to the I-84/Meridian Interchange project. Other comments supported the addition of bike lanes to as many transportation projects as possible, improving the U.S. 2 and Idaho 57 intersection, adding a pedestrian crossing on U.S. 2 and widening U.S. 95 between Moscow and Plummer.

Changes made to the ITIP since the draft was presented to the board in July will be reviewed at next week's meeting before it is asked to approve the FY13-17 plan. Upon approval, staff will ensure that the metropolitan planning organizations’ Transportation Improvement Programs are mirrored in the document and will then submit it to the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration and Environmental Protection Agency for approval.