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Board members to tour Teton Valley
as part of annual visit, meeting in District 6

Transportation Board will begin its two-day monthly meeting Wednesday (Aug. 19) with a tour of Teton Valley in District 6. One of the first stops will be at the Conant Creek railroad trestle. Board members will be briefed about the bridge, which has been retrofitted to be used for the Ashton to Tetonia Rail Trail.

The board also will meet with local officials at Driggs City Hall to discuss Driggs Main Street project, reverse diagonal parking in Victor, the Victor transit center, bicycle/pedestrian issues and other transportation issues. The day’s activities also include a tour of the Driggs Airport.

Other board discussion

Idaho traffic crashes 2008 report
Representatives of the Office of Highway Operations and Safety will present the Idaho Traffic Crashes 2008 Report during the business meeting Thursday at the District 6 office in Rigby. The meeting is open to the public.

The report provides data and analysis of the state’s traffic crash problem areas and illustrates progress made. It becomes a reference document, along with other tools, to support the selection of projects and locations for improving highway safety on a statewide and local basis.

Although District 3 had the most fatalities in 2008 with 71, its fatality rate of 10.53 was the lowest in the state. District 4’s fatality rate of 26.08 was the highest. The statewide rate was 15.22. Rates are calculated per 100,000 population. The least number of fatalities (19) occurred in District.

Following are other notable statistics from the 2008 report.

The cost of a fatality was almost $6 million.
The primary contributing factors to traffic deaths were unbelted occupants, alcohol and aggressive driving.
15 to 19-year-old drivers comprised 6 percent of the drivers, but they represented 14 percent of drivers involved in fatal and serious injury crashes.
48 percent of motorcycle fatalities were single-vehicle crashes.
Eleven pedestrians and two bicyclists were killed.

Forest Highway Program
Proposed changes to the Forest Highway Program will be presented to the board for approval.

The tri-agency group, consisting of ITD, the U.S. Forest Service and the Western Federal Lands Highway Division, met earlier this year to update the program. The average annual funding is approximately $15 million. No match is required for the projects. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided an additional $5.5 million.

Funds are used or projects on designated forest highways, public lands highways, park roads and reservation roads. Eligible activities include planning, research, engineering, highway construction, highway reconstruction, adjacent parking areas, interpretive signs, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, rest areas and visitor centers.

Some of the FY09 projects include:

Banks to Lowman Highway in Boise County: safety and guardrail improvements
Enaville-Thompson Pass Road in Shoshone County: overlay 13 miles
Salmon River Road in Idaho County: reconstruction

Account write-off
ITD policy requires that all uncollectible accounts exceeding $1,000 be reviewed and approved for write-off by the board. The director or a designee reviews and approves for write-off all accounts less than $1,000. For FY09, staff determined 41 accounts totaling about $23,000 to be uncollectible. It requested board approval to write off eight accounts totaling $16,684. A total of 33 accounts in amounts less than $1,000 have been determined as uncollectible. The total of those accounts is $6,350.

This compares with 119 accounts in excess of $75,000 last year.

The outstanding receivables are more than three years delinquent. Customers are not allowed to do business with ITD until their deficiencies are paid or statute of limitations is reached. Most of the accounts are related to damage claims, registrations and mileage tax fees.