Feeling the earth move under our feet

The last thing the Flathead Valley needed was to move agonizing traffic jams from Kalispell's Main and Idaho north to U.S. 93 and West Reserve Drive.

But that's the way things were heading under a Kalispell bypass plan that was unveiled last year. But to the credit of the transportation officials and consultants involved with the bypass project, there has been a somewhat creative response to new information and input.

Traffic data collected along the bypass route clearly showed that gobs of vehicles would be funneled north to clash with increasing traffic in the growing commercial area at U.S. 93 and West Reserve. Add to that mix a new high school to the west, an approved retail plaza to the south and a potential mall to the northeast, and you have in the terms of traffic planners, "unacceptable levels of service" at Reserve and U.S. 93.

So those involved rightly put on the brakes, and steered the project toward some alternatives. The new recommended design comes with overpasses, a loop road to the east of U.S. 93, and a connection route to the west of the highway leading toward the new high school.

The new plan comes with a higher cost, of course. The old simple bypass plan was expected to cost $28 million, but that would simply be a waste of money considering that traffic problems would be increased rather than alleviated.

Depending on how many features are included, the new plan could cost close to $80 million. But the best part about the plan is it is not set in stone.

And that's the way it should be. As time passes and perhaps more information comes to light, this plan should be tweaked and adjusted in every fashion possible to produce the best results. This is the type of project that should be built for the future, without requiring the construction of major alternative routes in 20 or 30 years.

To be sure, it is not likely that transportation experts would consider the revised plan to be a perfect fix for pending traffic patterns around Kalispell.

But it's better than pursuing a plan that would produce nothing more than a malfunction junction.