Future now sunnier for Sun Road

Imagine any street in Kalispell being left untended for 70 years, with the exception of occasional pothole patching and occasional asphalt overlays.

Chances are the road wouldn't hold up too well.

Now imagine the same maintenance plan for a road that's chiseled into alpine cliffs and subjected to frequent poundings by rocks and avalanches, along with freezing weather most of the year and steady summertime traffic.

That's what's been happening with Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road for the last seven decades, and finally the road is going to get some maintenance money worthy of its historic and aesthetic status.

Last week, Congress approved a six-year transportation bill that included a $50 million injection for the Sun Road reconstruction project that has been envisioned since at least the mid-1990s. That appropriation alone will not cover the total project price, estimated to be in the range of $140 million to $170 million. But annual funding derived from the National Park Service's road program is expected to cover the balance during the project's six-to-eight year span.

Montana's congressional delegation deserves high praise for pulling this off. It has required a persistent effort that dates back to the term of former Montana Rep. Rick Hill, who started the process of lobbying for support from fellow lawmakers. Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg have all done the same, generating support so that the $50 million survived a long period of scrutiny in the House-Senate conference committee.

National Park Service personnel, particularly those at Glacier, have also done well in assuring that the Sun Road project is regarded as a priority rather than some routine item on a maintenance backlog list.

Sun Road's needs became as obvious as the gaping hole that opened in the road just below the West Side Tunnel after a heavy rainstorm in 1996. That incident, along with a series of inspections, clearly demonstrated how the road would eventually need to be rebuilt. It has been a serious matter at Glacier, one that led to the 1999 creation of a citizens advisory committee that closely studied the road's problems and the best way to fix them. Federal Highway Administration officials and consultants have devoted thousands of hours to the same task.

With so much effort invested, continuing with the piecemeal annual maintenance program was no longer acceptable. Engineers and others concluded that someday, the road would end up closing itself with a catastrophic collapse.

Now, with last week's appropriation, there's reason to expect Sun Road will be around for another 70 years.