Baucus secures $50 million for Sun Highway

Hungry Horse News

A massive federal highway bill includes $50 million for repairs to Glacier Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road, Montana Sen. Max Baucus said Monday.

"This is a jobs bill," Baucus said. "We have done very well in this bill securing dollars for Montana."

That's short of the $100 million figure the National Park Service estimated it would take to fix the ailing highway, but it's still more than what was in a House version of the bill.

The House version of the highway bill had no money for the Sun Highway.

The $50 million in funding was negotiated during a joint conference committee between the House and the Senate last week.

Baucus sat on the joint conference committee that crafted the legislation.

Aide Barrett Kaiser said the money for the Sun Road, which is specifically earmarked for the highway, was one of the highest in the bill. The only other single project to get that same sort of funding was the Golden Gate Bridge, which also got $50 million.

Kalispell Attorney Randy Ogle, who chaired the Going-to-the-Sun Road committee that crafted the rehabilitation plan for the road, was pleased by the funding effort.

While this funding doesn't cover the entire cost estimate of the project, Ogle noted that the rehab is expected to take eight or nine years. This funding will go a long way to getting it done.

"I think it's wonderful," Ogle said. "…It's an awfully good start."

Ogle commended the entire Montana Congressional delegation and said it was also a testament to Congress, who recognized the value of the highway.

In addition to the earmarked funding, Kaiser also noted the bill boosts funding for National Parks roads as a whole - which would also benefit Glacier.

Park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt said Tuesday it was premature to comment on the bill as the legislation hadn't officially passed.

A finished bill was expected to go to President Bush by Wednesday, just after the Hungry Horse News went to press. The funding boost is part of a five-year nationwide highway bill that is funded by federal gas taxes.

The actual cost to rehabilitate the road and complete other mitigation was estimated by the Park Service at $140 million.

But that cost also figured in several other projects, such as a shuttle service in addition to the red buses and a visitor center at Apgar.

Since 2003, the Park Service has spent about $11 million on rehabilitating the highway according to calculations by the Hungry Horse News. In the works is about $2 to $5 million more in projects slated to begin next year.

The work, to date, has centered on the alpine section of the highway, where portions have been literally slumping off the mountainside.

This year, for example, crews are drilling large i-beams into the road bed near the west side tunnel to anchor the highway into the mountainside.

Similar work is being done at the Triple Arches and last year, work on the same par was done at Haystack Butte.