Efforts roll along for park transit system

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

The first bus has arrived - a shiny white, boxy thin "Sprinter" - starting off the development of Glacier National Park's experimental transit system.

Actually, the new Dodge-DaimlerChrysler biodiesel shuttle is the simplest, most tangible evidence of a complicated effort to develop a transit system in the park.

Park officials are in the final stages of completing an agreement with the Montana Department of Transportation and Flathead County's Eagle Transit that is expected to put a fleet of Glacier buses to work elsewhere in the state during the park's slow winter season.

"The really wonderful aspect of this cooperative arrangement that's being hammered out is that these vehicles will see year-round use in Montana," said Amy Vanderbilt, Glacier's communications and outreach manager. "They will be used on Sun Road during the summer months, but they will be folded into the Eagle Transit operations in Flathead County and elsewhere in Montana during the rest of the year."

Part of the fleet could be diverted to Montana's universities and there is potential for the agreement to eventually involve the Browning-based Blackfeet Transit Service, Vanderbilt said.

The buses are being purchased through a General Services Administration contract with money that is part of the Going-to-the-Sun Road reconstruction project.

A major part of that project, slated to start next year, is a mitigation program aimed at offsetting the impacts of a multiyear construction project on park visitors. The park transit system was identified by a citizens advisory committee as a major way to reduce traffic on Sun Road and enhance visitor experiences in the park.

The park's transit system is entirely voluntary and is not intended as an attraction in itself, explained Gary Danczyk, Glacier's mitigation project manager.

Visitors can still drive their own cars on Sun Road, or they can make use of interpretive tours provided on the recently restored red buses or through Sun Tours. If they pay an entrance fee or use a pass to get into the park, they can get simple, free rides through the park transit system.

That system eventually will involve 22 of the 12-passenger Sprinters that will mostly be used to navigate the narrow, winding alpine section of Sun Road west of Logan Pass. That fleet cost $1.6 million.

A request for proposals is out for eight larger, 24-passenger buses that will be used from St. Mary to Logan Pass, in the lower McDonald Valley and in the Apgar area. Danczyk said those buses will be more expensive, but the cost won't be known until bids come in.

The transit system will operate out of three hubs - one at St. Mary, one at Logan Pass and through a new transit center already under construction at the "T" intersection leading to Apgar Village. The transit center and the transit system are scheduled to be operational by July 1, 2007.

From there, Danczyk said, park officials will closely watch how the system works and how it is used by park visitors.

"We know that during the construction cycle we are going to have to refine our transit system every year," he said. Even in its first summer of operation, for example, the system will have a scheduled stop in the Loop area, but that's an area that will be inside a reconstruction zone.

"We're going to have to work around that," Danczyk said.

And with major repairs planned due to recent flood damage in the East Tunnel area, he said, the new transit system may provide a "unique supporting role" in getting visitors past those work areas.

"One of the things we will learn a lot about is whether we will be reaching capacity on those buses," he said, noting that buses are currently scheduled to stop every 15 minutes in some locations and every 30 minutes in others.

Because the transit system is new to Glacier, with some unique elements, it officially has been designated as a pilot program by the National Park Service.

Danczyk said that status came about "because of the nature in which we are doing this in conjunction with construction and because of the cooperative agreement."

The cooperative agreement has been a challenge on multiple levels - negotiations have involved myriad details about the distribution of buses, maintenance responsibilities and staffing.

"It's a complicated task between the three parties, partly because it's an unprecedented federal, state and local agreement," Danczyk said.

To operate the buses just during the summer months at Glacier, Danczyk said it's expected to involve a staff of about 100, including as many as 80 drivers. The park is paying for transit system operations through a $5 entrance-fee increase that took effect in May.

Designing a custom transit system for Glacier is kind of like reinventing the wheel, in the sense that there are no exact models that can be copied from urban areas or even other national parks.

"We're trying to do this in a way that's appropriate for Glacier National Park," Danczyk said. "We're trying to have a system that makes sense for Glacier."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com