Transportation plan: A hard road to hoe

Developing a logical grid system could be difficult, residents still want a bypass

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

A draft citywide transportation plan for Whitefish met with mixed reviews on Jan. 10, as residents expressed concern about new roads coming into their neighborhoods and the need for a bypass around the city.

About 120 people showed up at the O'Shaughnessy to hear Jeff Key, of Robert Peccia and Associates, present the draft plan.

"I've received a lot of e-mails today," he said. "A lot of people were concerned this plan was slipping through the cracks, but this is just a first step."

Key said cities typically conduct transportation plans every 10 years, but with all the growth in Western Montana, they might need to be done every five years.

The overall goal of the plan is to aim for an efficient transportation grid. Whitefish's draft plan recommends 21 major street projects totaling $61 million. To achieve that, the city must begin to set aside rights-of-way for future roads, Key said.

"A farm field must develop in order for a road to run through it," he said.

Key, however, said he recently learned that some of the major road projects recommended in the draft plan run through areas that may not develop because of critical areas such as wetlands or because landowners are considering putting land into conservation easements.

Key said his directive was to develop a logical transportation system, but he was also directed to look at a bypass. This meant taking another look at the bypass alternatives created in the 1993 environmental impact statement for the U.S. Highway 93 project through Whitefish.

Major projects such as a bypass encounter "huge" environmental problems and rights-of-way costs, he pointed out. It's better to focus on improving the city's transportation grid, he said.

"We have not recommended carrying the bypass concept further," Key said.

That comment did not sit well for some in the audience. Some people were concerned that once Karrow Avenue was upgraded into a three-lane highway as proposed in the draft plan, at a cost of $6.6 million, it would grow into a bypass by default.

One person noted that without a bypass around Whitefish, residents will continue to see "the same old logging trucks" running through downtown.

Key said he hoped the downtown master plan would address that issue, and he noted that only 8-12 percent of trucks pass through Whitefish.

"Twenty years ago, people worried that a bypass would kill a small town," said George Smith, a Flathead County planner who lives in Whitefish. "But now people are worried that not having a bypass will kill a small town."

A companion study on the U.S. Highway 93 corridor is currently under way by the Montana Department of Transportation.

Key said 11 different options are being studied for a couplet system that could include Baker and Spokane avenues and Second and Seventh streets. The Seventh Street bridge over the Whitefish River is estimated to cost more than $5 million. A draft version of the corridor plan could go public in two months, Key said.

Noting that the Wisconsin Avenue corridor is narrow and rights-of-way there would be expensive, Key recommended left-turn bays as a simple solution to traffic congestion there.

Wisconsin, which is a state highway, was accruing about $117,000 a year and had about $773,000 in federal money, but a major rebuild of the road could cost $4 million, including pedestrian crossings, traffic signals and rights-of-way.

A second viaduct over the BNSF Railway tracks could also prove very expensive. A viaduct from Texas to Columbia would cross six tracks and could cost more than $2 million. Such "mega-projects" were unlikely to be funded, Key said.

The Whitefish plan deviated from most transportation plans by including a separate chapter on schools, Key said. He referred to recent federal legislation for a Safe Routes To School program.

Traffic congestion in the City Beach area could be addressed by making some access roads one-way during the peak summer tourist season.

Key said non-motorized transportation should be given as much emphasis as motorized, and he cautioned about putting too much money and focus on one or two major projects.

The Whitefish City-County Planning Board took up the draft transportation plan at its Jan. 17 work session. The planning board could hold a public hearing on the plan on Feb. 21. It would then go to the city council in March.