The Blaine County Commission has rescheduled a discussion of the controversial East Fork Road widening project to 11 a.m., Monday, June 9. The meeting will be held in the upstairs meeting room at the Old Blaine County Courthouse in downtown Hailey.
Under plans unveiled by Idaho transportation officials during a contentious meeting last week, the first few miles of the main two-lane road that leads up the valley of the East Fork of the Big Wood River east of state Highway 75 would be reconstructed to wider federal standards. When complete, the road would include two 11-foot vehicle lanes for traffic traveling in both directions as well as two 5-foot-wide bike paths, one on each side of the road.
Speaking earlier this week, Commissioner Tom Bowman said the meeting will be held to "try to ferret out the facts and truth" that came out of an earlier 2003 meeting held to discuss the project. What agreement may have come out of that meeting in regards to the public's desire to have the bike paths included in the project is under dispute.
If the road is widened, project planners say, it will have to be raised at least two feet higher. This would in turn require many of the entrances to private homes along the roadway to be raised up, thereby creating steeper entry and exit points.
The project area extends from the east side of the bridge over the Big Wood River to just east of the entrance of Ranch Lane onto East Fork Road. East Fork Road extends higher into the Pioneer Mountains and dead-ends on Sawtooth National Forest land west of Hyndman Peak and several other summits in the range.
