Meridian city wants more trails to help commuters avoid traffic. Here’s the plan
Boise’s 25 miles of Greenbelt trails are a popular spot for consistent walkers and bikers. But for Meridian city officials, having accessible pathways for alternative ways to commute and recreate has been something to aspire to.
The city is working to update its pathways map in the coming weeks to show 2 miles of new routes added and changes to existing pathways. In a meeting with the City Council on Tuesday, Kim Warren, Meridian pathways project manager, said the city’s pathways map is “overdue” for an update.
“We do have a master plan that was done some time ago, and obviously the city has grown a lot since then,” Warren said.
In a 2021 survey by the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department, residents said pathways and trails were the most important parks-related amenities to them.
The city plans to add a connection between two trail systems in Meridan’s northwest and southeast areas this summer. The connection includes 2,300 feet of trail between McMillan and UStick and Black Cat and Ten Mile roads.
“I’m calling this our Golden Spike pathway because it’s where two big sections are going to meet,” Warren said. “It’s been a missing gap for a really long time.”
City plans to update Meridian pathways map
As the city continues to add pathways, council members Liz Strader and Luke Cavener want a better way to show Meridian residents the areas of pathways in their neighborhoods that could connect them to their workplaces.
“This to me is very useful recreationally,” Strader said. “I think where it would be really powerful is if it was more useful as an alternative mode of transportation.”
Meridian residents are pretty consistently faced with traffic during rush hour, as their growing city tries to accommodate the population with existing roads and highways. Between 2020 and 2023, Meridian’s population grew by nearly 18%, according to the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho, adding nearly 21,000 new residents.
“The fact that people can soon get to a lot of places avoiding traffic almost entirely is a pretty big deal,” she said.
Strader and Cavener said they would support a city phone app that could help residents navigate through the pathways system.
“I just want (the pathways) to be utilized much more than it is,” Strader said.
Cavener was concerned that residents would be confused or disheartened by the number of “proposed” rather than existing pathways. He suggested that the city note on the map which proposed pathways were planned and funded, which would depend on a development application to continue the paths, and which are city-driven.
Cavener said residents are entirely in the dark over how long a proposed pathway would take to be built.
“If I’m a citizen and I see, hey, there’s a proposed pathway there, I get really excited,” Cavener said. “And if a year goes by, two years, five years go by, I start to get really jaded and frustrated with government that there’s this proposed pathway and nothing moving forward.”
Warren plans to bring the final copy of the proposed pathways plan to the council at its meeting on June 6 for final approval.
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