New Idaho laws focus funding on cars. How will they affect Boise’s growth plans?

Local agencies in the Treasure Valley are concerned about the impact that new Idaho laws focusing funds on car-centric projects will have on efforts to make cities more accessible to pedestrians and bicycles.

House Bill 237, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law earlier this month, restricts how property taxes collected by highway districts can be spent, and requires that they be “primarily” reserved for bridge and road infrastructure for vehicles.

Another new law defines “congestion mitigation” as only related to vehicles, which excludes potential efforts to reduce congestion by improving other forms of transit.

Two more bills that passed limit how road district revenues — like sales tax, which gets distributed in part to highway districts — can be used, requiring them to only be spent on improvements for vehicles.

In interviews with the Idaho Statesman, Rep. Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett and Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, emphasized that the legislation is not meant to prevent agencies from spending funds to improve public transit, pedestrian or other infrastructure.

But that hasn’t stopped agencies in the Treasure Valley from worrying that the language — which they say is unclear — could handicap their efforts to diversify transit opportunities and implement life-saving safety improvements.

For more than a decade, road deaths have been on the rise nationwide, even as they continue to fall in many other wealthy countries. From 2017 to 2021, Idaho totaled 85 fatal pedestrian crashes and 15 fatal bicycle crashes, according to data from the Idaho Department of Transportation.

At a March hearing in the House, members of the Boise Bicycle Project, the Idaho Walk Bike Alliance and Compass testified against House Bill 237. Compass is the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho, a regional transportation planning agency.

Local highway districts get revenue from a number of sources, but a large portion come from property taxes. Those funds are then used to pay for improvements and maintenance, ranging from road widening to adding bicycle lanes, crosswalks or curb cuts.

“Our real concern here was that the Legislature was ultimately tying the hands of the highway district and how they would be able to use that portion of their funding as it relates specifically to pedestrian and cyclist safety projects,” Kathy Griesmyer, Boise’s government affairs director, told the Statesman by phone.

Local government officials also fear the restrictions could harm the ability of local transit agencies to receive federal grants. Those grants often require a local agency to ‘match’ a portion of the funding. Property tax revenue is a common way to do so, as it is relatively stable.

“There really aren’t many other sources available for funding that local (agencies) have the flexibility to use when there’s a good opportunity for federal funding for those local matches,” said Jacob Miller, government affairs coordinator for Compass, at the House hearing.

In an email, Amy Luft, a spokesperson for Compass, told the Statesman the agency has concerns about the effects of the bill, but said it’s too soon to know its impacts.

Griesmyer pointed out that last year, the Ada County Highway District received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for 12 pedestrian- and cyclist-focused projects. The grant required a $1.2 million match.

In an email, ACHD spokesperson Rachel Bjornestad told the Statesman the district has not done an assessment of how the new law will impact revenues and project selection.

After last year’s elections, which saw Miranda Gold defeat incumbent president Mary May, most of the ACHD Commission campaigned on supporting multi-modal transportation. Unlike other highway districts in the state, ACHD is responsible for not only more rural county roads but also roads in downtown Boise and other Ada County cities.

Federal grants often tied to local funding requirements

So far during the administration of President Joe Biden, Congress has authorized billions of dollars in new funding toward bike, pedestrian and mass transit infrastructure projects, which Griesmyer said she doesn’t want Idaho to miss out on.

Tying the highway district’s hands on federal tax dollars they could use “I think is short-sighted when there’s so much money on the table,” Griesmyer said.

In an interview with the Statesman, Blanksma said that the bills were not intended to stop projects for alternative transportation and won’t do so. She said the legislation is meant to clarify for citizens what their tax dollars are supposed to go toward. She added that the Legislature has directed more money toward highway districts in recent years, and wants those funds to be “focused” on building better roads.

“If you’re going to tax people, if you’re going to collect their money, then you need to make sure that it’s directed to what it was intended to be used for,” Blanksma said. If districts are taxing residents for highways, “let’s make sure that taxpayers understand that that’s where those monies are intended to go. And if you want to put them in another direction, that’s not prevented. It’s just that you need to be completely transparent for the taxpayer.”

She also said that other sections of state code allow agencies to use state funds in coordination with federal funds, allowing them to provided needed “matching” for federal grants.

”There’s plenty of room for them to build bike lanes with other money,” Rep. Palmer told the Statesman. He also noted it was “not true” that the new laws would limit the ability of such districts to get federal matching, adding that the state has recently provided more money for child safety on roads “than ever.”

He said that the legislation putting limits on special taxing districts — which in addition to highway districts can include cemetery, irrigation, and other districts — was meant to ensure they stay within the bounds of what taxpayers created them for.

“They need to go back and double-check that they’re not stepping out of bounds a little bit,” he said. “You have to be responsible to what the taxpayers are asking for,” noting that if the needs of a taxing district changes, then its charter should change, too.

Elaine Clegg, CEO of Valley Regional Transit, which oversees Treasure Valley public transit, said she had asked the Legislature to reword House Bill 237 to make it clearer that projects involving other forms of transit would not be excluded. The Idaho Association of Cities also asked for the same change, which Sen. Ali Rabe, D-Boise, attempted to add to the bill. The bill ended up passing without the suggested revision.

Clegg said she plans to “take the Legislature at their word,” hoping that the new law will not limit alternative transportation projects. But she said it will make those projects more difficult to secure.

The law “create hurdles that will make it more difficult for most local governments in Idaho to access federal funds and to do other things than they might have had it not been written,” she said. “It is clearly the state trying to create a restriction on what local government can do.”

Roughly 30% of Idahoans don’t drive, Clegg said, adding that she hopes that, in the coming years, the Legislature pays more attention to other forms of transportation.