Transportation
Board
Board
to tour eastern Idaho, meet in Rigby
The
Idaho Transportation Board will visit Teton County and
the far eastern reaches of Idaho next week as part of
its trip to District 6. The tour, which will take U.S.
20 to West Yellowstone and on to Victor and Driggs,
coincides with the board’s July business meeting
in Rigby Thursday (July 19).
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Public
Transportation
New partnership creates free system in Valley County
A
true partnership involves groups and organizations joining
together to accomplish collectively what they could
not do separately. Perhaps there is no better example
than the creation of a new transportation system serving
four Valley County communities and one of the nation’s
newest four-seasons destination resort – Valley
County Connections.
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Highways
GPS
box helps track maintenance activities
Tracking
the location and activities of ITD highway maintenance
vehicles might get easier thanks to a pilot project
featuring a little gold box. The Preco PreCise System
combines global positioning satellite (GPS) technology
with Wi-Fi and cellular communication capability in
a small gold box that could be mounted in all ITD highway
maintenance vehicles, according to Steve Spoor, ITD
highway equipment superintendent with the Office of
Highway Operations and Safety.
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Two-week
campaign targets aggressive drivers
With
aggressive driving contributing to more than half of
all crashes in Idaho, ITD is partnering with law enforcement
agencies throughout the state to conduct a second aggressive
driving campaign that begins Sunday and continues through
July 28.
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District
6
6
Bits offers colorful insights to district activities
What
do a sign at Tom’s Shell in Idaho Falls, Coery
Finn’s truck driving skills, health insurance
coverage and an environmental conference have in common?
They play prominent parts in the new District 6 newsletter
“6 Bits” published this week.
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Environmental
conference focuses on wildlife
ITD’s
environmental professionals gathered at the District
6 office in Rigby on June 12 and 13 for “Environmental
Streamside Chat 2007,” sponsored by ITD’s
Environmental Section. It was District 6’s turn
to plan and host this annual conference.This year’s
conference theme was “Integrating Wildlife Crossings
into Transportation: Highways and D-6 Environmental
Planner Tim Cramer Wildlife Connectivity, Crossings,
Habitat Fragmentation and Linkages.”
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Environment
Wildfires
shroud southern Idaho; caution used when parking
Idaho
led all western states with six active wildfires covering
nearly 100,000 acres as of Thursday evening, according
to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. Of
the six fires, two (the Warms Springs fire on the Payette
National Forest and the Jim Sage fire in the Twin Falls
District of the Bureau of Land Management) had been
contained as of Wednesday.
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Hot
weather brings higher health risks
It’s
back … weather that sends rattlesnakes to the
shade and children to the swimming pools. Triple-digit
temperatures. Humidity that shrivels cactus. July throughout
most of Idaho is off to a blazing start. Two record
highs were eclipsed in Boise in the first five days
of July and maximum temperatures have been in the mid-
to upper 90s every day since the July 1 high of 90 in
Boise.
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District
3
Dave
Jones named District 3 Engineer
This week he learned that he will rejoin his esteemed
colleagues as a fellow district engineer – assuming
responsibilities for the state’s most populous
area, District 3. Chief Engineer Steve Hutchinson announced
Jones’s selection Thursday.
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Highways
New
Web site highlights beauty of scenic routes
A new Internet site launched in late June will help
summer travelers enjoy scenic views of Idaho while learning
about the state's history. The Idaho Scenic Byways site,
at www.idahobyways.gov, promotes 27 byways throughout
the state. It went active on the Internet on June 25.
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Partners
Joe
Haynes to retire from LHTAC
The
Local Highway Technical Assistance Council, which serves
cities, counties and highway districts throughout Idaho,
is about embark on something it doesn't have much experience
with — hire a new administrator. Joe Haynes announced
last week that he will retire in September from the
position he’s held the past 13 years. He is the
only administrator the public agency has had and was
instrumental in drafting legislation that created LHTAC
in 1994.
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