The Smart Growth Award For Ten Mile Interchange

May 5th, 2008 categories: Community Events, Real Estate News

Feat1b A new interchange is needed at Ten Mile Road to access the Interstate, relieve traffic congestion, improve emergency response times to the area, and provide an additional north-south arterial through western Ada County

The City of Meridian has some very exciting plans for the Ten Mile Interchange that not only involves traffic but the entire scope of the community development.

The City of Meridian’s comprehensive plan for the area surrounding the future Ten Mile Interchange has been awarded a 2007 Grow Smart Idaho award for Policy and Planning by Idaho Smart Growth. This annual competition recognizes projects that use smart growth principles to encourage vibrant communities .

Map of comprehensive plan for Ten Mile area

The City’s hope is that this plan will allow for all the intricate parts of a community, including recreation,green spaces, commercial, and residential to work together and shape the outcome of this area. Hopefully resulting in an end product that will benefit its property owners and residents, and the community as a whole.

Of course this will involve change to an area that has been able to avoid change for quite sometime. The quiet country side will now be a outlet for the increase in traffic and I’m sure the citizens are not looking to be part of that solution. With this smart growth plan there is hope that this area will increase in value and not just increase in problems.

So many times these road improvements goals are just to solve a traffic problem. I think the City of Meridian did a good job of looking at the potential for development and capturing that issue before it became a unplanned hodge podge. Requiring developers to fit into their plan instead of the city having to work around the developers plans. Smart!

Tags: Ten+Mile+Interchange, Traffic, Ada+county