Much of last year’s damage to the Boise Greenbelt has been repaired after heavy snowfall melted into a rushing torrent that chomped on pieces of the riverbank, but one part of the trail still needs to be put back together.
If you jog or ride your bike near the fairgrounds in Boise, you might’ve seen a bridge leaning up against a fence nearby.
The Plantation Island Bridge used to connect Garden City to the south with Boise to the north before heavy flooding damaged its support pillars last year.
Stephani Hilding with the Idaho Foundation for Parks and Lands says they recently received a federal grant to help pay for repairs, but they need to raise $75,000 to bankroll the rest of the project.
“The floods can’t be predicted, the flows can’t be predicted, so we’re doing everything we can to not have it happen again and keep the bridge in place,” Hilding says.
If funded, the concrete pillars supporting the bridge will be reconstructed and fortified against future floods.
The bridge is the only north-south link on the Boise Greenbelt between Highway 44 and Veterans Memorial Parkway.
Hilding says repairs would only take a few weeks once the money is raised. She hopes to have the bridge open to traffic again by next January.
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