Council delays decision to adopt updated Whitefish Transportation Plan

The update to the Whitefish Transportation Plan has been in the works for a couple of years, but when it was up for a vote in the City Council meeting last week the council decided to postpone the decision.

Despite holding a work session ahead of the regular meeting, and having to delay voting on the plan two weeks ago, Whitefish City Council voted to push the decision to the next meeting; the vote to delay was 4-1 with Councilor Steve Qunell voting in opposition.

“This (plan) has been out there for a really long time, it has been vetted by the public,” Qunell said. “It has been in the works for… over two years. It is designed in fact… to limit or somehow reduce congestion.”

Since the Transportation Plan was presented to the Study Review Committee on May 11, it underwent changes brought about by comments from the committee and edits by city staff. The draft then was available for review at a public open house on the first of June, a City Council work session, as well as a Planning Board work session and public hearing.

“We planned to bring this to council at the last meeting but received some comments… and decided we should spend a little more time with it in order for me to put together this document,” said Workman.

Workman sent a memo to the council explaining some of the changes, most of which were housekeeping clarifications: grammatical corrections, changes for consistency and more detailed descriptions.

Workman said that there were a number of questions from the public and from council during the work session that he wanted to address.

He pointed out locations along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor that would be seeing a combination of medians and two-way left turn lanes: at Skyles Place and at Woodside Lane, along Wisconsin Avenue to Denver Street where there is a proposed left turn lane, and a two-way left turn continuing to Labrie Drive. There are also turn lanes proposed at Glenwood Road, Colorado Avenue and Reservoir Road.

The council questioned staff about planning for medical emergencies and wildfire evacuations and whether that should be part of the Transportation Plan.

“This Transportation Plan looks at the network as a whole and it makes a variety of different recommendations… all of which are intended to improve traffic flow, improve circulation, reduce congestion,” he said. “If and when there is a specific emergency, we would have more dialed evaluation plans. Each emergency is going to have its own set of criteria.”

Councilor Sweeney pressed the idea of having evacuation plans connected to the Transportation Plan. City Manager Dana Smith mentioned the Emergency Operations plan the city has in place and suggested Fire Chief Joe Page comment.

“We’ve started working on plans based on the different things we’d be evacuating from knowing there are a lot of different things going on, its wind direction, weather, are we evacuating from a hazmat situation, a wildland fire,” said Page.

Qunell voted against postponing the decision on the Transportation Plan, in part, because he didn’t believe a two-week delay would bring about a full emergency evacuation plan.

“I don’t know what we’re substantially going to get in two weeks regarding an evacuation plan. That seems like a pretty heavy lift,” Qunell said.

Workman also asked for direction from the council about setting a minimum standard for shared-use paths to 10 feet. Verbiage in the plan says, “Paths eight feet in width may be allowed for low traffic situations or along riparian buffer zones.”

Councilor Sweeney suggested setting a standard of 10 feet and discussing exceptions as they present themselves.

“We should put out there what we desire… and eliminate the reference to (accepting) eight feet,” added Mayor John Muhlfeld.

Citizens who spoke during public comment agreed that shared-use path widths should be a minimum of 10 feet, including local landscape architect Bruce Boody.

Ed Lieser, a member of the boards of both the Whitefish Legacy Partners and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation was in favor of the wider paths even though most of his work is spent minimizing the human footprint.

“Given the anticipated flow and traffic, this seems like a potential hazard, necking it down,” Lieser said. “I took the time to measure the width of the trail from Kay Beller underneath the highway… and it's already 10 feet,” Lieser said. “Necking it down would restrict traffic… this seems like a potential hazard.”

Councilor Norton’s motion to continue this item to the next council meeting on Oct. 3, passed and was supported by all except for Councilor Qunell. The public hearing will remain open.