At the corner of Main Street and West Bullion, the new path runs right up against the storefronts. Four blocks west at Hop Porter Park, it has narrowed by a third and runs beside a row of nose-in parking. Between those two points the path keeps the same name and the same purpose, but its shape changes three times. Each change follows whatever the path had to fit around.
The City of Hailey will cut the ribbon on the Bullion Pathway at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 26. In its October "Our Town" newsletter, the city calls it "a signature project that increases bike/pedestrian safety from Main Street to Hop Porter Park and add beautiful amenities and landscaping." The council scheduled the ceremony ahead of its own meeting that evening. At 5 p.m. comes a joint session of the City Council and the Hailey Urban Renewal Agency on the Airport Way Transportation Master Plan.
The ribbon cutting celebrates a path that isn't quite finished. Knowing how it was designed, and what is still on order, makes it easier to read what you'll see along it this fall.
What the four sections look like, walking west
The construction bid describes about 1,200 linear feet of work along the north side of Bullion Street. It covers storm drainage, concrete and asphalt, street lights, tree wells, Silva Cells to give tree roots room under the pavement, and a base for pavers. Landscape architect Mark Sindell of the design firm GGLO walked the Hailey Urban Renewal Agency board through the four sections in May, and the Idaho Mountain Express laid them out:
- Main Street to about halfway to North River Street. The multi-use path is 12 feet wide and runs right along the property lines, with an 8-foot planting strip for trees and plants on the street side.
- The rest of the way to River Street. The path stays 12 feet wide, but the planting strip shrinks to 6 feet. This section ends just past the parking lot at the corner of North River and West Bullion.
- The residential stretch to Hop Porter Park. This is the only section with plantings on both sides: an 8-foot strip along the street and a 4-foot strip along the property lines.
- The Hop Porter Park frontage. The path narrows to 8 feet and runs right along the park's edge. A 6-foot planting strip and an extra 2-foot setback separate it from the perpendicular parking.
Read as a set, the measurements explain each other. Downtown, the path hugs the buildings so the street can keep its parking. In the residential blocks the city had room for greenery on both sides. At the park, nose-in parking set the width.
The first half block was a parking negotiation
The section closest to Main took the longest to settle. At an April 15 meeting covered by the Mountain Express, HURA board members agreed that the stretch between Main and River should be narrowed slightly. Their goals were to keep angled parking for businesses and to discourage biking there. Display boards shown to the public had moved six angled spaces to three parallel ones between Main Street and the alley behind the Anderson Performance Institute. Board members said they wanted to keep every angled space in that half block.
Martha Burke, then a board member and now mayor, framed the issue in local terms.
"At a certain age, you are not walking to the market and carrying bags home. I understand that parking diminishes the human scale of things, but at this point it's incredibly necessary."
At the same meeting she noted that finding parking downtown has "been a problem since 1972." To make room for the existing 18-foot angled spaces, the board suggested dropping a few planned lilac trees near the corner. As a replacement for that greenery, members floated a mural on the south side of the Bullion Square building. Board chair Larry Schwartz said the design should "visually let everyone know that the bike path starts on River Street, which is where we want people going anyway."
The parking question went another round. The Hailey Planning and Zoning Commission later voted 4–1 for the six-to-three conversion, with one of the parallel spaces accessible, and sent the design on to the council and HURA. None of the records reviewed for this post confirm which layout was actually built at the corner. The curb on Oct. 26 will answer that more reliably than any document.
These negotiations explain why the section closest to Main is the busiest and most compromised part of the route. The design steers riders toward River Street, and a path whose job is safety had to give ground to downtown's oldest complaint.
Trees and furniture come last
The second thread of the story is timing. The bid schedule ran construction from April 27 to Oct. 2. Crews started at the Hop Porter end, worked east through the residential and park-and-ride sections, and finished with River to Main. The city's April newsletter aimed to have part of the safe route ready before the first Hailey Rocks concert, with irrigation and landscaping to follow. Hailey Rocks opened on Thursday, June 25.
By midsummer, the visible pieces were split into separate schedules. HURA minutes from a July 21 site visit list 45 working days to finish the new section between Main and River. The goal was to get the project "close to final in September and potentially add site furnishings then." The minutes add that trees "will arrive late September/early October." The same minutes say the project was using the $250,000 set aside for contingency, and that the "artwork component will be revisited over the winter when remaining funds are known." At the next site visit on Aug. 18, Public Works Director Brian Yeager told the board there had been "some overruns due to change orders" and that the project "should meet the financial thresholds."
So the pieces arrive in order of necessity. The pavement, drainage and lights had to come first. Trees were due right around now, furnishings depended on September progress, and the art waits until the books close. The records reviewed for this post don't confirm which benches, bike racks or plantings are in the ground as of early October. If parts of the route look bare at the ribbon cutting, the HURA minutes laid out that sequence months ago.
What the money covers
In April, HURA set a not-to-exceed figure of $1,479,466 for the project. That total includes about $201,718 already spent, $827,748 in low construction bids, a $200,000 contingency and roughly $250,000 in future eligible costs. HURA covers eligible costs and the city manages the work. The city's July 27 council packet proposed adding the same $1,479,466 to its capital budget, offset by an equal HURA reimbursement. The bids before the council in April came from American Vac Services for site and civil work at $474,958.50, and from Clearwater Landscaping for planting and irrigation at $138,881.01 and pavers at $213,907.98.
A larger figure has circulated before. An earlier Mountain Express story put $4.25 million on a broader, multi-phase redesign of Bullion Street. That number covered a bigger plan. It doesn't measure this project, and it doesn't mean this project went over budget. No records from this fall describe a next phase west of Hop Porter Park.
What changed at the Hop Porter end
The pathway also got the park ready for a different season of use. Sindell told the Express that the renovated Hop Porter stage, with a new roof, support structure and concrete wall, would cost about $250,000. The landscaping plan puts disease-resistant hybrid elms along West Bullion from Main to the park and honey locusts along the path in front of it.
"All those trees were rigorously discussed, researched, explored and vetted, including with the Hailey Tree committee over several meetings, to make sure that we have trees that are well suited and will grow here." — Mark Sindell, GGLO
The ground plantings include May Night salvia, echinacea, blue oak grass and catmint. Sindell said they were chosen to be "really nice for pollinators and for people year round." The July minutes also note that snow removal operations had been reviewed. This winter will be the first real test of a 12-foot path through downtown.
The rest of late October happens on the same blocks
Several of the month's other city dates fall along the new route:
- Wed., Oct. 21 through Sat., Oct. 24. The Friends of the Hailey Public Library hold their 38th Annual Fall Book & Bake Sale at Town Center West, 116 S. River St. Oct. 21 runs 4 to 6 p.m. for members only. The sale opens to everyone Oct. 22 and 23 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Oct. 24 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. is buy-by-the-bag day.
- Sat., Oct. 24, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The free fall yard waste cleanup takes place at the Park and Ride at Bullion and River, which is where the pathway's residential section begins. Branches can be up to 8 feet long and 18 inches in diameter. The city says the semi-annual cleanups diverted 11.34 tons of yard waste last year.
- Mon., Oct. 26, 4:30 p.m. The Bullion Pathway ribbon cutting, followed by the 5 p.m. joint Council and HURA meeting on Airport Way at City Hall.
- Fri., Oct. 30, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Halloween Hoopla brings costumed characters to Main Street, where the path begins.
The library is asking for book-inspired costumes at the Hoopla.
At Wood River Properties, we follow projects like the Bullion Pathway because small changes to a street, like a planting strip or a few parking spaces, shape what a block feels like for years. If you'd like to talk through how downtown Hailey's ongoing work affects a particular address, Kirsten and Heidi are glad to help. Contact Us.
