STAR, Idaho — State funding cuts almost stopped the Highway 44 widening project in the heart of Star — but after months of advocacy from city leaders and neighbors, the project is back on track.
Star has grown from approximately 11,000 residents in 2020 to roughly 25,000 today — a 140 percent increase. Highway 44, also known as State Street, runs from Interstate 84 in Caldwell all the way to Glenwood in Garden City and Boise, passing through Middleton and Star along the way. Through downtown Star, the road currently operates as a three-lane section — two lanes with a center turn lane — creating a daily bottleneck.
“There’s over 25,000 vehicle trips a day that drive that thing that they can get, they get bottlenecked all the way back to Canyon County and all the way past Highway 16 in there,” Mayor Trevor Chadwick said…