College of Business and Economics Poster Presentations
Title
Alleviate Congestion from Nampa to Boise
Document Type
Student Presentation
Presentation Date
4-16-2012
Faculty Sponsor
Samia Islam
Abstract
In recent years, the Treasure Valley has grown significantly, and so has congestion as a result of the rapid growth. Our goal is to examine ways to minimize congestion in the Treasure Valley by improving public transportation through a proposed rail system running from Nampa to Boise. By examining comparable cities with rail systems, such as Albuquerque, NM, we will look at bus ridership statistics to determine if a city bus system is more efficient than rail. Also, we will examine existing surveys from sites like transportationnation.org to see which people prefer. An important step in our analysis will be to examine empirical data on Idaho’s historical and projected population growth to determine what form of public transportation is most efficient. We plan to compare the costs of current transportation mode choices (i.e. public buses and private cars) to the proposed rail system using cities like Denver, Portland and Seattle as a reference. Our research will examine whether public or private funding is feasible for an effective public rail system in Boise. We expect to find that current and future residents of the Treasure Valley would benefit from a more efficient rail system to improve the amenities Boise offers, and to alleviate congestion and increase public transportation usage before the problem becomes too costly to resolve.