For the week of March 20 - 26, 2002

Public access at Timber Way draws debate

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By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer

A proposal to close access to a side-road off Highway 75, about five miles south of Ketchum, was praised by residents of the area Monday, but also stirred a debate about access to public lands.

The Idaho Department of Transportation, at Blaine County’s request, proposes closing the Timber Way intersection because it would interfere with a new traffic signal just south of it at East Fork Road and Highway 75.

No one disputed that idea during a meeting of the Blaine County Commission Monday morning at the Old County Courthouse. But just how the road should be closed and what kind of parking and trail access should be given to people wanting to hike, bike or ride horses up Timber Gulch is still undecided.

The transportation department proposes building a 90-foot diameter cul-de-sac at the far east end of Timber Way, just a few feet from the highway. That would allow for snowplows and emergency vehicles to turn around at the end of the public road and it would provide street parking.

Neighbors, however, would like to make the last several hundred yards the road private. The trailhead is at the other end of the approximately half-mile road with access by automobile through the new Golden Eagle Ranch II subdivision. Neighbors say there is no reason for the county to maintain the eastern section of Timber Way, which leads to three parcels of land owned by a single person.

Whatever happens, Blaine County Recreation District director Mary Austin Crofts encouraged the road-builders to create public parking.

The existing public access to Timber Gulch has been a nuisance for neighbors, who said at the meeting that people using the trail have damaged sprinkler heads by parking cars on them and have endangered hikers by illegally riding motorcycles on the trail.

One unanswered question is whether a gate neighbors constructed across the access is legal.

"This is a sore subject with me," said county engineer Jim Koonce. "It looked to me that it would be difficult to get a person through there," much less a horse.

The commission is scheduled to consider the matter again on April 22.

 

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