Idaho Falls to remove a traffic light downtown

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – UPDATE 9/26/23 11:30 a.m. – The Idaho Falls City Council made a motion to remove the traffic light at E Street and Park Avenue in a work session on Monday evening.

Idaho Falls Public Works says the removal process will happen fairly quickly, but they are unsure of the exact timeline.

Another decision that needs to be made before the removal is what the intersection will become. The only thing they know for sure is that it will not become a roundabout.

The city will retain the traffic light at the Cliff Street and Yellowstone Avenue intersection.

Public Works says public feedback was a huge part of the decision. Idaho Falls Public Works Public Information Officer Kerry Hammon says, "We encourage public comment. It does help us tremendously... We had a lot of well-thought out comments that were submitted, so we looked at all of those and documented them and then took them to city council."

Those looking to stay informed and get involved in decisions can sign up for alerts and notifications on the city's website.

The reason these two lights were discussed about being taken down was due to a low volume of traffic, so they were not and are not completely necessary. Hammon says, "One of the things we have to look at is if you have a traffic signal that's up and it doesn't warrant the traffic counts, it can actually result in more impacts or more delays... It can also drive up rear end accidents on major roads. So we take a look at the accidents and the safety and what's happening at each of those intersections."

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - Some changes could be coming to downtown Idaho Falls that could affect future traffic.

The Idaho Falls City Council will review public comments on the possibility of removing two downtown traffic lights.

One of the lights is on the intersection of E Street and Park Avenue.

Most of the public comments received on this option had no opinion one way or the other.

The city reports getting 60 comments.... 45 expressed no opinion. 8 were for it, 7 were against it.

The other traffic light the city is considering removing is at the intersection of Yellowstone Avenue and Cliff Street.

The public was a lot more opinionated on this one.

Of the 60 comments the city received, 51 were against the plan to remove that stoplight.

The City Council will discuss both options at a work session on Monday at 3 p.m. at the City Council Chambers in the City Annex building.