Voting for Ada County Highway District | Marisa Keith
I’m a student studying urban planning with a special interest in transportation and would like to inform of the best candidate (in my opinion) in the ACHD subdistrict 4 commissioners race.
Marisa Keith is the most qualified candidate in this race. She works as the director of “safe routes to school” which is a program that makes it safer for kids to get to school from their homes.
She pioneers a unique approach to improving all modes of transit by increasing the amount of mid-block collectors (larger streets that connect neighborhoods to main roads) we have in our street system. Much of the treasure valley suburban landscape is defined by 1 mile by 1 mile grids that leave only certain routes practical for driving, and make walking and biking extremely inconvenient.
Adding more through collectors means traffic will be more naturally dispersed instead of bottlenecking on the same roads, lessening congestion. This is clear when you examine adjacent Boise, with a much more grid-like structure with multiple practical routes to get everywhere in their more single-family neighborhoods.
Her approach also improves biking and walkability, by increasing accessibility to destinations and the amount of practical routes to get places.
Most other candidates in this race are reactionaries who pride themselves on “common sense” with a pseudoscientific approach of simply adding lanes. However, adding lanes only induces demand (creating more traffic and sprawl) and degrades the communities in which people live.
I encourage people as a student of urban planning myself to vote for Marisa Keith as a qualified and experienced candidate who understands the technical context and experience needed to perform this role.