These days, the Boise mayor and council seem deeply uninterested in addressing urban decay problems south of the Boise River. Hundreds of Boiseans are at risk of being evicted from rickety trailer parks and hundreds of school children walk to school in dangerous conditions without sidewalks, yet the city is spending huge amounts of energy (and, possibly, money) on a downtown streetcar.
Boise City should be spending stimulus and other money on finally helping neglected Bench neighborhoods with better housing, reinvestment and life-safety features such as sidewalks. Unlike the downtown streetcar, these are all urgent needs.
In the past two years, at least four mobile home parks have closed in Boise and Garden City. In contrast to the streetcar committee of movers and shakers, trailer park residents are the moved and the shaken. According to a Boise State University study, about 5,400 Boiseans live in manufactured housing. Half are seniors and a quarter, astoundingly, live on $900 a month or less. Most are women and nearly half have a chronic medical condition. One in four live in a park listed for sale or redevelopment.
This issue has receded with the economy, but it will return and what is the city doing now to prepare? Helping these people is complex job that will require imagination and commitment, but it could be done in partnership with local housing agencies, the Capital City Development Corporation and federal stimulus funds.
If that’s not enough of a priority, the city could focus on building sidewalks, the lack of which is a serious safety issue on the Bench. One of the reasons our family and three children moved from the Bench was the severe lack of sidewalks; we just didn’t feel safe letting our kids walk to school. Nowadays sidewalks are required – much like electricity, indoor plumbing and fire codes – but the city decades ago allowed Bench neighborhoods to be built to primitive standards. Now is a good time to go back and fix this and connect these sidewalks with the new schools the Boise School District recently built. (Indeed, the Boise School District has done far more reinvestment in neglected neighborhoods than the city.)
If the city really wants a streetcar for the economic benefits that come with it, I suggest it build a streetcar line between the crumbling strip mall at Orchard/Emerald and the mostly vacant strip mall at Orchard/Overland. Don’t laugh – a streetcar in fact used to run on Orchard Street! A modern line there would spark private-sector urban renewal the city wants and show Bench neighborhoods that they, too, are worth the good stuff. After 40 years, the city has done a great job with downtown. It is a decade overdue for the city to turn its urban renewal efforts to the Bench.
The city will say the federal funds are only for transit projects, not for sidewalks or developing decent housing, but I think that’s just hiding behind process. If there’s a sincere political will to build sidewalks or help people who are about to lose their homes, the city will find a way to do it; the money is out there. In fact, on Dec. 1, The Statesman reported new federal grants for “projects that connect destinations and foster the redevelopment of communities into walkable, mixed use, high-density environments.”
This sounds just like what we need in some places south of the Boise River. I implore the city to stop doting over downtown and get to the real work of improving lives and safety in neglected Bench neighborhoods. Follow your consciences.
5 comments
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December 15, 2009 at 10:20 am
Chris Blanchard (@LGM1)
Dang, Martin. You really have unreasonable expectations. Did you think that because $500,000 was dumped into planning a revitalized Orchard and Emerald Corridor (including a light-rail stop) that the City was actually going to do something? It’s only been 10 years since all the Orchard/Emerald studies came out. Give these people some time!
December 15, 2009 at 12:07 pm
mjohncox
Chris, thanks for the informative reply. Forgive my poor memory, but I don’t recall any plans for Orchard-Emerald being done, unless it was by the ACHD and dealt with traffic. My impression is the city hasn’t done many studies about the Bench, period. Do you have a link for this Orchard-Emerald Corridor Study? If there really is such a study like this, it is all the more reason for the city to get moving on urban revitalization on the Bench.
December 15, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Leo A. Geis
Thoughtful, intriguing, and very persuasive, Martin. I have absolutely no expertise in this subject but I am more than happy to sign on to your position. Thanks for informing me (you too, Chris!).
December 22, 2009 at 8:57 am
Laurynda Williams
I think that this has some very valid ideas and I agree wholeheartedly. Growing up in Boise, the downtown looked like Beirut. Storefronts closed, large gaps with no infill at all. (The Grove is a relatively new development – we were lucky that private money built it!)
Bodo is thriving – even if it has a dumb name. We still have all those parking lots the S-16 folks own. Why not spread the federal money around to the bench? I agree, in many neighborhoods it is not safe to walk to school. Kids want to bike, yet they are hit in the dark early mornings and evenings by motorists in too big a hurry to get to work. Since people do not slow down and watch for cyclists and pedestrians, I think a streetcar would be a great idea on Orchard!
What can be done to fill the empty storefronts on Orchard? Can’t the owners give incentives to new businesses to sign a lease? New ventures are risky, but look at the number of new shops along Orchard and Emerald.
The City Council does need to look beyond downtown and think about the underemployed and the families in need in all of Boise’s neighborhoods.
December 31, 2009 at 7:20 am
Laurynda Williams
We need to look at all of Boise! The lack of sidewalks is apparent. ACHD needs to ask people before they dig. I think we all need to look at the impact on families and the marginal neighborhoods. The overall impressions of “good neighborhood” drug-zone, gang apartment complex, etc. is narrow-minded, racial and dividing. How about a little change and compassion for all people?