BOISE, Idaho — Valley Regional Transit is celebrating 10 years of Main Street Station in downtown Boise, reflecting on the station’s role in local transportation and looking at potential ways to expand transit options across the Treasure Valley.
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Since opening a decade ago, Main Street Station has helped get buses off downtown streets and provided riders with more affordable ways to travel throughout the valley. VRT celebrated the milestone on Saturday.
As part of the anniversary, the station features a mural highlighting the history of transportation in the Treasure Valley.
“We hired the artist who actually did the mural at the top of the stairs to do a mural for us down here on the history of transportation in this valley, and it goes all the way from horses and Indigenous riders to our latest buses,” VRT CEO, Clegg showed Neighborhood Reporter Kalkidan Meyer.
For Clegg, public transportation is also personal. She said she learned to ride the bus at an early age while growing up in Denver, where her mother did not drive.
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“I lived in Denver for six years as a kid. My mother did not drive, so anywhere we wanted to go, we had to take the bus. So I learned to ride the bus very early,” Clegg said.
Today, Clegg says taking the bus can offer a more relaxing alternative to driving, particularly as traffic increases across the Treasure Valley. Riders can use their travel time to read rather than focus on driving.
“I find myself so much more relaxed because that trip, instead of being white-knuckle behind the wheel, is a relaxing trip. I can read, I can ride distracted. I can't drive distracted, but I can ride distracted, and they love it,” Clegg said.
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As the region continues to grow, VRT is also exploring ways to expand transportation options, including the possibility of using an existing freight rail corridor for commuter rail or other high-capacity transit.
Clegg said VRT is participating in an effort to study whether that corridor could be used for high-capacity transit.
“We're also part of an effort to look at the existing freight rail corridor and see if we could use it for high-capacity transit,” Clegg said.
VRT says its goal is to keep pace with the Treasure Valley’s growth and provide more people with ways to get where they need to go.
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