The 170 people who attended the so-called hearing on alternatives to state Highway 75 should have been given magnifying glasses as they entered.
At least with these they might have had half a chance of figuring out what the Idaho Transportation Department is considering for the length of the highway.
As it was, members of the public were left to decipher tiny red, green and yellow lines representing the highway superimposed on murky gray aerial photographs hung the length and width of the Blaine County Senior Center. They were left to read tiny yellow type stuck on the aerials.
Of course, there were generic signs posted. And, anyone desperate to understand the alternatives in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement could have thumbed through the single copy of the 1,100-page document there.
Though ITD representatives were present to answer questions, no one gave a beginning-to-end tour of alternatives.
The so-called "hearing" did a disservice to the public. It also did a disservice to the hardworking people who put together the highway alternatives.
The public had no reasonable way to get its arms around the big project,
Highway planners and designers didn't get to talk about the tradeoffs necessary in designing the alternatives.
Although people asked questions of individual ITD representatives, no larger audience could hear the answers. Nonetheless, people were asked to comment by videotaping or writing comments.
A real town-hall-style public hearing in which people could have asked questions and all could have heard answers would have gone far to educate the valley.
As it is, few people know how much noisier a new 5-lane highway will be than the existing highway.
Few know what pedestrian improvements would look like on Main Street in Hailey, or what safety they would bring.
No one knows what kind of visual impact big noise walls will have on the drive to Idaho's premier destination resort.
No one knows why the study omitted any option for sidewalks on both sides of the highway from Elkhorn Road to Ketchum.
No one knows what kinds of cost limits constrained various options.
No one knows why the study did not forecast how much traffic could be diverted from the highway to mass transit options if Ketchum imposed paid parking.
No one knows why the highway alternatives did not include the stretch from the valley to a new airport.
Worst of all, the hearing left valley residents like the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant.
