Bike-path plan falls through
Some landowners along the route, however, declined to grant the necessary easements.
By ALAN CHOATE
The Daily Inter Lake
A proposed bike/pedestrian trail near Columbia Falls has been permanently derailed, sending proponents back to square one in their effort to provide alternate transportation routes.
About $265,000 had been allocated from the federal Community Transportation Enhancement Program to build a trail along River Road from Columbia Falls Stage Road to U.S. 2.
Some landowners along the route, however, declined to grant the necessary easements.
"That one's dead. Dead and destroyed," said Anne Scott-Markle, a member of the group that's been trying to organize a Columbia Falls project for several years.
She and other members of the Bridge Club - originally formed in an unsuccessful effort to repair Columbia Falls' historic Red Bridge across the Flathead River - on Tuesday asked Flathead County commissioners to set the money set aside until they come up with a replacement project.
That can't be done.
Instead, they will have to come up with a new project and submit it for approval along with other proposals next spring, planning office director Forrest Sanderson said.
"I hate to be the one to drop bad news," he said. "But it's not long-term bad news."
About $600,000 in CTEP money is being spent this year to extend the Great Northern trail by two miles west of Kalispell and to build a trail along U.S. 93 from the Somers hatchery to the public beach area.
The county receives between $140,000 and $160,000 a year for transportation enhancement projects.
The return of the Columbia Falls money means that an additional project could be funded next year, Sanderson said, and there's a long list of proposals from across the county clamoring for dollars.
In the meantime, the Bridge Club members and the Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board will solicit ideas for new trail projects.
The Red Bridge also is slated for replacement, but it's unclear where the money for that project will come from.