Welcoming Boise’s First Traffic Garden!
The Grand Opening Celebration of Boise’s First Traffic Garden on August 23, 2025
This past Saturday marked an exciting milestone for Boise and for the Boise Bicycle Project. Together with the City of Boise and the Idaho Transportation Department, we celebrated the grand opening of our community’s very first permanent traffic garden in Ann Morrison Park!
The project was a collaborative effort, and wouldn’t have been possible without the City of Boise, which provided access to the park road where the garden is built, and SHIFT Idaho, a program of ITD, which supported the project financially. Their partnership helped transform our multi-year vision into a reality. Now Boise has a dedicated, welcoming space where children and families can discover the joy, confidence, and connection that come from riding a bike.
About 20 families joined us for the celebration, where women from our Shifting Gears program helped guide kids as they tried out the course for the first time. The women in our Shifting Gears program were ecstatic - saying that it was exciting to help direct traffic through the course and see bikes given away to families that they themselves had built in the program! One woman mentioned that when she re-enters our community, she wants to fix up her own kids’ bikes and bring her children down to learn to ride on the course. Throughout the celebration, we talked to multiple parents - one shared that her daughter could ride in their neighborhood, but the steep angle of their streets was hard for her to learn on, so this flat and safe space made her more confident in riding. Another said their family lives in a part of Boise that is surrounded by main roads and heavy traffic, and so having a place where his kids can ride safely and siblings can enjoy the park is ideal. One rider excitedly told us, “I’m never getting off my bike!” Already, we have seen families returning to use the space, which is open to everyone daily during park hours.
This traffic garden comes at a time when the need for safe riding spaces has never been greater. As our streets have become faster and more dangerous, safe opportunities for children to ride freely and independently have diminished. But a bicycle is so much more than a mode of transportation. It is a tool for independence, confidence, health, and resilience. By opening Boise’s first permanent traffic garden, we are not only providing a home for BBP’s Bicycle and Safety Hour (BASH) program - we’ve created a community space where children and families can rediscover the freedom and joy that comes from riding a bike.
This project represents an important step toward putting people before cars, creating safe spaces where children can play, learn, and grow, and nurturing a lasting love of biking in the next generation. We are grateful to our partners, volunteers, and the families who joined us in celebration, and we look forward to seeing this space come alive with the learning and joy of kids on bikes for years to come!
