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Originally Posted by Visualize
I'm still not sold on reducing Vista by a lane in each direction for on-street parking until there is a viable reason to do so. I don't think reducing traffic speed is going to cut it because there aren't really any businesses along Vista that don't have plenty of off-street parking, so it could potentially go completely unused. Based on some of the newer businesses on Overland and Vista, it seems that the zoning is moving toward a more pedestrian model, but without the density to support it removing lanes is very premature. The type of density required for their "Idaho Brooklyn" idea is never going to happen if the city doesn't start allowing whole neighborhoods to be bulldozed. There has been quite a lot of shotgun homes going up in the Vista/Overland neighborhood, but even that isn't enough.
What I'd like to see is a serious look at a light rail proposal going from Downtown and up Vista to the airport, but only if zoning was drastically changed to allow for dense TOD. Having the light rail go to the airport creates an obvious and important link, but also provides a close location to create a park and ride into Downtown, a storage facility for the light rail itself, and the chance to build a vast, truly urban neighborhood right on downtown's doorstep. Most of those homes could be torn down, as shown by the number of shotgun homes sprouting up.
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Granted, I'm not a Boise native nor have ever been to Boise and am in fact an East Coaster with an East Coaster's view of what "congestion" looks like, but:
What you've got on Vista Avenue is a chicken and egg problem. See, in its current configuration it prioritizes speed over anything else, and because of that, whatever the city's stated intentions, you'll never get denser, more pedestrian-oriented businesses.
That said, you don't necessarily need to have a parking lane to have a good urban presence. Take, for example,
Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, PA, which has four through lanes (none removable short of redefining the meaning of the word "gridlock") through a dense walkable neighborhood.
It also has some really ridiculously narrow sidewalks even when you have buildings making a street edge. That sidewalk needs to be twice as wide or nobody's gonna be wanting to walk on the street.
Something else I note about the area around Vista Avenue is that it has excellent connectivity. Blocks are small and generally (but not always) connected to Vista.
This is an asset and may be as important a factor in forecasting ridership as density.
It sounds to me like Boise's planners want to implement a classic road diet on Vista. Actually, what Vista really needs are:
1. A narrower center lane (one perhaps just wide enough for pedestrian refuges between major intersections)
2. Separated bike lanes given likely traffic conditions
3. Wider sidewalks
Of these, (3) is easily the most important. A wider sidewalk separates pedestrians from fast-flowing traffic, which in turn makes them want to linger on the street more, which in its turn builds demand for pedestrian-oriented retail, which brings more pedestrians to the street ...
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Putting in a grocery store automatically makes the area 1000 times more attractive to future urban residents in the area. I'll wait for total analyzation of the final plan, but it really sounds like an asset to the entire area, and naturally invites everyone through property with the addition of streets and paths. Fingers crossed.
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