Blaine County Community Bicycle & Pedestrian Master Plan
Hailey, ID, USA
Blaine County Idaho
A visionary master plan to create a world-class path system
Services
Community Planning
Public Outreach
About the project
Known for its scenic beauty and abundant recreational opportunities, Blaine County is one of the Idaho’s most unique places. Although Blaine County has an extensive pathway system and a thriving bicycle and pedestrian culture, it did not have a Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan that could help the county and the cities within Blaine County make the system truly world class.
How we did it
Harmony Design & Engineering created a comprehensive Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan in 2014 and a full update to the plan in 2023. The goal of the plan was to provide a tool to help the various governmental and non-governmental organizations in Blaine County work together to create a seamless, interconnected, and integrated multi-modal transportation and recreation system. Robust public outreach was conducted to shape and inform the master plan. Recognizing that members of the community have a wide variety of schedules and comfort levels, multiple avenues for gathering public input were used in order to evaluate current conditions and assess the community needs. This included on-site mobile public workshops, online surveys, meetings with a diverse working group, one-on-one interviews with stakeholders, and group stakeholder meetings facilitated by both Harmony and the working group.
The plan includes information on the current state of biking and walking facilities, which is being updated yearly; tools for making existing and future infrastructure safer and reduce conflicts between different user groups; design guidelines that provided a framework for future facility improvements; a roadmap for future development including short-, mid-, and long-term opportunities; and concrete adoption and implementation steps. The plan provides cohesion among the communities within Blaine County, and, at the same time, allows each community to maintain their own identity. The plan has been widely accepted and supported, as demonstrated by its adoption within six months of its June 2014 completion by all affected agencies. The Blaine County Community Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan was awarded the 2016 Citizen Advocacy Award by Idaho Smart Growth and a 2015 Idaho APA Honorable Mention Award.