Resident asks city to preserve view of night sky on Texas Ave.

Texas Avenue resident Tim Salt says if decorative street lights are added to his neighborhood it would lose its rural feel and views of the stars in the night sky.

The City of Whitefish is planning to reconstruct Texas Avenue and the Public Works Department has been working on the preliminary design of the street.

Last week Salt told City Council that while improving the street and adding a pathway along it is a good improvement, he’d rather see smaller ballard lights used along the trail than the decorative lights the city typically installs when reconstructing a street.

“We chose to live in this neighborhood because we wanted to live in the city,” he said. “But we wanted to live in a neighborhood with a more rural character including being able to see the dark night sky.”

City Council approved the street project, but waited to make a final decision on whether the decorative street lights will be included.

Councilor Frank Sweeney has long spoken in opposition to adding decorative street lighting to the entire city saying it doesn’t make sense for every neighborhood.

“It’s my pet peeve,” Sweeney said. “We don’t need every single project to have our standard lighting package.”

Public Works Director Craig Workman said the priority of the street project is to enhance driver and pedestrian safety through roadway improvements, street lighting, intersection improvements and improved pedestrian accommodations.

“Staff has been working hard to balance the desires of residents to maintain the rural character and quality of the neighborhood with the long-term vision and growth projections for the corridor.”

The public works department recommended including the decorative street lights in the western boulevard to focus lighting downward onto the path and roadway similar to what was recently completed on Somers Avenue, State Park Road and the soon-to-be-completed Edgewood Place.

Workman said the decorative street lighting is intended as a safety measure on the path while ballard lights don’t provide enough light to meet that goal. The design of the project can move forward with the final decision on lighting coming later, he noted.

The plan calls for reconstruction of the street from Edgewood Place to the north of Denver Street. Workman said there was a large number of comments from residents who said they didn’t want the street reconstructed north of Denver.

The street is planned to be 26 feet in width and include a new path on the west side of the street. Stormwater management work and improvements to the water and sanitary sewer systems are also part of the project.

A four-way stop is expected to be added at the intersection of Texas and Denver and a three-way stop at Texas and Cedar.

The reconstruction of Texas Avenue is expected to cost $2 million. Work is slated for October 2022.

In other street news, City Council approved hiring Morrison-Maierle as the engineering firm to design a watermain replacement project for Spokane Avenue.

The city recently was informed that the Montana Department of Transportation plans to make pavement and crosswalk improvements on Spokane Avenue through town. Ahead of this, the city plans to replace the cast iron watermain below the street that has had a long history of repairs.

“The increased frequency of water main breaks and bell joint leaks are clear indicators that this pipe is well beyond its service life,” Workman noted.

In addition to the costly breaks, the watermain restricts the city’s hydraulic capacity because it’s undersized which leads to difficulty maintaining system pressure and adequate fire flows in certain areas of the system, Workman notes.

The project is estimated to cost $1.9 million. The city has budgeted $1 million for cast iron watermain replacement in fiscal year 2022. It also plans to use the $1.45 million awarded to the city as a grant from the American Rescue Plan Act funds.