Bad Rock corridor study wrapping up

State considering 3-2-3-4 and 4-2-4 configurations

When it comes to highway construction projects, funding is often the last word. In the case of reconstructing U.S. 2 through Bad Rock Canyon, highway fatalities, unstable rock formations, a gas pipeline, high voltage transmission lines, scenic vistas along the Flathead River and Native American cultural concerns all play a big part.

Plans to rebuild the highway go back at least to 1995, when the Montana Department of Transportation completed a final environmental impact statement for the Columbia Heights to Hungry Horse section. As local opposition to the plan mounted, led by Hungry Horse environmentalist Sharlon Willows, MDT completed a re-evaluation document and rebuilt U.S. 2 from Highway 206 to the House of Mystery in 2004.

Further work languished since then despite local concerns about fatal wrecks. MDT’s draft corridor study for the project, released Aug. 20, reports that 77 crashes occurred in 2006-2010, injuring 45 people and killing five along the 2.5-mile long project area. The crash rate for Bad Rock Canyon was 2.5 times the statewide average for similar highways.

Head-on collisions accounted for 10 percent of all crashes, “which is considered a high percentage since the entire corridor is striped as a no-passing zone,” the study said. All fatal crashes occurred in the western-most half mile of the corridor, as did seven of the eight head-on crashes and six of the eight reported crashes involving wild animals.

Rapid growth in the Flathead also drove the need for a second look at the project. While average daily traffic volume in Bad Rock Canyon can climb from 5,000 vehicles during most of the year to 13,000 in the July and August tourist season, substantial population growth in the Flathead over the past decade also created a need to update traffic and accident figures. The level of service in the corridor is unacceptable during peak hours, the draft study said.

In early 2011, members of the Canyon community approached MDT about making improvements to U.S. 2. Former state Rep. Dee Brown, who owns an RV park in Coram, sat on the project’s advisory committee. Replacing the deteriorating steel bridge over the South Fork of the Flathead River should be a top priority, she told MDT.

But with a price tag of $9.7 million to $24.2 million, replacing the narrow two-lane bridge with a new four-lane bridge complete with bike paths was not on MDT’s immediate horizon.

“Don’t quote me, it’s hard to say when the bridge could be built, maybe 2021,” Shane Stack, MDT’s preconstruction engineer for the Missoula District, told people at an informational meeting at the Hungry Horse Ranger Station on Aug. 28.

But his boss, Missoula District administrator Ed Toavs, a Columbia Falls High School alumni, offered a second opinion.

“The project could be phased in, as we did with Highway 35, by building a two-lane bridge and then later widening it to four lanes or adding a second two-lane bridge,” he said. “In that case, it could happen in this decade.”

Phasing in construction costs may be necessary for the entire length of the corridor. High costs helped eliminate four of six proposed alignments — $400 million for tunneling past Berne Park, $70 million to partially bypass the canyon by crossing the Flathead River, $90 million to completely bypass the canyon by crossing the river, and $300 million to go up and over the mountain south of the canyon.

Those alignments had other major problems. MDT made it clear at the Aug. 28 meeting that it doesn’t want to disturb the unstable rock cliffs, whether it’s blasting for roadway or tunneling. And while dealing with environmental impacts for a new bridge next to the old one is hard enough, dealing with two new bridges in new locations for the bypass options is not considered worth the risk. Those alignments also lacked community support, MDT notes.

That leaves two alignment options. The simplest is to build a new bridge over the South Fork and then make reasonable short-term improvements to the existing roadway for $500,000 to $4.5 million. That would include guardrails, rumble strips, improved drainage, removing vegetation in places, wire-mesh rock-fall protection, an 8-foot wide bike path on the north side only, and a million dollar wildlife undercrossing at the dangerous west end.

“Can we get some of those improvements now?” Brown asked at the meeting.

The second alignment option calls for optimizing the existing roadway to meet current MDT design standards where practical and incorporating features from the first option. Estimated costs are $48 million to $69.5 million. Key to this design is a half-mile section of cantilevered roadway in the narrowest part of the corridor, with part of the two-lane highway projecting over the Flathead River.

Contrary to previous announcements and MDT’s August newsletter, the draft study now recommends two different lane-configurations for the optimized alignment option — a 3-2-3-4 configuration and a 4-2-4 configuration. In both cases, the highway would narrow to two lanes at the cantilevered section. Bike paths would be provided on both sides of the highway.

MDT recommends full reconstruction of the corridor within the 2035 planning horizon following completion of a supplemental EIS. If phased in, the cantilevered section would be constructed last. The $170,000 corridor study will wrap up in September.

In the meantime, MDT is conducting a “spot speed study” of U.S. 2 from Kalispell to West Glacier that will look at roadway characteristics, crash data and traffic numbers. MDT might recommend a “special speed zone” to the Montana Transportation Commission, which sets speed limits.

That last point struck a chord at the Aug. 28 meeting. While safety improvements for some participants meant straighter and wider roadways, for others it meant slowing down and accepting 45 mph as the speed limit. For MDT, however, keeping a two-lane roadway isn’t an option.

“For that much money, they’ll want to see some improvement,” DOWL HKM project manager Sarah Nicolai said.

To view the draft study document, visit online at www.mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/badrock. Comments can be sent to Sarah Nicolai at snicolai@dowlhkm.com or by calling 406-442-0370. Deadline is Sept. 14.