Preston’s State Street went from four lanes to three and two bike paths after the Idaho Department of Transportation’ piloted a road change.
PRESTON – The city of Preston’s State Street is changing back to the way it was before the Idaho Transportation Department experimented with a Road Diet. Preston’s Mayor Dan Keller and city council requested the change.
Preston’s Road Diet converted their existing four-lane, undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center, two-way left-turn lane.
The Federal Highway Administration touts a road diet as a low-cost way to enhanced safety, mobility and access for all road users and environment to accommodate a variety of transportation modes.
Despite the good intentions of the Idaho Transportation engineers, most Preston citizens nor Preston’s mayor Dan Keller were not fans of the diet.
“I’ve got a bunch of text messages and emails from citizens who don’t like the road diet,” Keller said. “It may work in other places, but it doesn’t work here.”
He said traffic on State Street backs up especially bad during the start of school and when people are trying to get to work at the hospital. During That Famous Preston Night Rodeo the traffic also got unbearable.
“The biggest complaint was from the school bus drivers. They had to wait forever to get onto State Street after dropping the kids off at school,” Keller said. “I went to the public hearings when they first started talking about it and no one was for it.”
Keller, a retired banker, worked on State Street for 38 years and said the road diet just didn’t make sense to him.
“We tried to work with the local and regional IDT officials about the traffic issues and we didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere,” he said. “So, we went to the top.”
Flanked by Idaho State Senator Mark Harris and Representative Marc Gibbs the mayor and Preston City Councilman Brent Dodge met in the basement of the Idaho State Capitol with Scott Stokes the acting director of IDT to make their case.
“I hated to go to the top, but we were out of options,” he said. “We are just a dinky town in Southeast Idaho and the state is the big brother. We were the laughingstock of the surrounding counties; we had to do something.”
The road diet was confusing to out-of-town drivers, some coming and going from Logan and some from Montpelier and Grace. As soon as drivers came round the bend on SH 91 at Stokes Marketplace to enter State Street, it got confusing.
The mayor’s plan of going to the top worked and Preston City officials got what they wanted.
“We have a letter from IDT telling us they were going to change it back to the way it was,” Keller said. “They are going to pay 100 percent of the chipping, sealing and stripping of State Street.”
The letter stated the diet pilot had caused unexpected congestion for the community of Preston.
“I confirmed the IDT will revise SH-91 lane stripping configuration of the road diet pilot, from two lanes to the original four lane configuration as it was prior to the pilot, Dan McEihinney, chief operations officer, said in the letter. “As discussed, this decision also removes the two left turn lanes due to limited right of way at each of the two signals, but the future city project you propose to widen the roadway utilizing city sidewalks and other planter area to accommodate future left turn needs on SH-91 is acceptable.”
The letter goes on to say that the IDT is committed to working with the city to find solutions that work for citizens of Preston.
As the highway enters town, the outer lane becomes a right turn only lane, making State Street a two-lane street with a turn lane in the middle. Also new are two bicycle paths that also go through town on both the east and the west side of the street.
The mayor carries a copy of the letter around with him so when people complain he can give them a copy.