Summer traffic snarled by road work

Drivers were outraged Friday afternoon when traffic backed up throughout Whitefish due to road construction on Highway 93 West.

Both Mayor John Muhlfeld and city councilman Andy Feury said they received phone calls saying the wait was over an hour.

“One man said he waited one hour and 15 minutes,” Feury said. “He said traffic was backed up from Central School to Safeway. If people are waiting that long, that’s not acceptable.”

In a meeting Tuesday morning, representatives from Schellinger Construction said they believed the wait was around 30 minutes, but that was still too long.

“It was unacceptable,” project manager Marc Blanden said. “It shouldn’t happen again.”

Blanden and other representatives at the meeting said they had been waiting on the city to move a gas line. Because the line was moved on Thursday night, Blanden said Friday was a difficult, busy day, and they had to shift the road to just one lane.

After being informed wait times were pilling up, Blanden said they did their best to expedite the process.

“Eventually, we got our trucks out of there, threw some dirt on the road and opened both lanes,” he said.

The company is currently discussing options to make traffic run more smoothly.

One option is moving the work schedule to a Sunday through Thursday workweek. However, Schellinger does not know if traffic will be any less busy on a Sunday than it is on a Friday.

Another option would be to work more at night, but due to city noise ordinances, the company can only work until 10 p.m.

“It’s unfortunate that there isn’t an alternative route,” Blanden said. “But maybe it’ll be better after Labor Day.”

Part of the reason for high traffic on Friday was due to a Canadian holiday. The company said they weren’t aware of the holiday, and they plan to be more prepared in the future.

Schellinger Construction said it’s their goal to keep the wait time to less than 15 minutes. However, at some times, construction is being done on two separate areas along Highway 93, which could lead to two wait times of up to 15 minutes each.

This coming week, construction will be focused on inserting a storm drain. The company will try to keep two lanes of traffic open as much as possible, however, some circumstances won’t allow it. If the soil they’re working on proves to be too much gravel, they will have to return to one lane.