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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