[Sawtooth]

I thought I would post some news and an example writing talent that is rarely seen in the main newspaper. I've included a few paragraphs from the article so click on the link if you care to read the whole article.




http://www.newwest.net/magazine/arti...est/C555/L555/






A century ago, Ustick, west of Boise, was a farming hamlet surrounded by apple orchards and served by a trolley car system. After World War II, Boise's sprawl gradually subsumed the bucolic little burg. Running east-west between Interstate 84 and Chinden Boulevard, Ustick Road – once a graceful tree-lined two-lane thoroughfare – became clogged with cars and lined with strip malls featuring gun shops and nail salons, small office buildings, and, eventually, big-box retail stores (a 97,000 square foot Kohl's department store stands at the corner of Ustick and Eagle Road).

Commute times into Boise lengthened from 15 minutes (the time it once took to ride the streetcar from Ustick to downtown) to 30 minutes and more, as traffic crawled along the narrow arterial.

The Ada County Highway Commission proposed to fix the traffic problem by dramatically widening the road, turning that once-picturesque country thoroughfare into a long field of asphalt. Boise city planners had another vision: to help Ustick regain its lost character with a boulevard-style byway, with planted medians and restricted left-turn points, public transit options, bike lanes and so on.


In Ada County, the highway commission (which is the only independently elected commission of its kind in the United States) was unimpressed with Boise's aesthetic concerns and moved forward with its blow-it-out plan. The city argued to have a part in the design but lost when the case went to court.