Eagle-Garden City Rotarians enjoyed an informative and enjoyable tour of Ada County Highway District (ACHD) headquarters. 
Eagle-Garden City Rotarians enjoyed an informative tour of Ada County Highway District (ACHD) headquarters. ACHD’s 459 employees are responsible for 5350 miles of roads.
ACHD Business & Community Relations Coordinator Erin Johanson hosted club members at headquarters. She toured members through ACHD’s ‘Petting Zoo’ where they met five ACHD employees and saw several of ACHD’s 422 vehicles including a dump truck, skip loader, and street cleaner and received a drone demonstration (including the group photo) from Dennis Meredith. Dennis is responsible for bridge inspections and explained drones save time and money and have improved safety and access to remote and tight spaces.
Bob provided an interesting tour of the street light equipment used in Ada County. He explained ‘time of day plans’ which change four or five times a day taking commutes and school traffic patterns into consideration. The street light department manages every single light in Ada County, including state roads and highways.
Fun fact: Bob is the voice of all the talking crossing lights, warning pedestrians when to walk and not walk.
Next, Rotarians visited the sign department which maintains ~430,000 signs in the County. The department creates street and traffic signs in-house. Current sign technology utilizes green film with letters cut out affixed to white metal sign material instead of installing white letters on green metal signs.
The final stop was the Traffic Management Center where Wendy demonstrated the wall filled with images from some of the 217 cameras throughout Ada County. She shared her duties scanning roads and intersections and alerting law enforcement about traffic issues.
Each employee was engaging, knowledgeable and said s/he had the best job at ACHD. It was nice to spend time with so many happy people. Thank you Erin and ACHD for a GREAT tour!