What happens when traffic?

By JOHN STANG

Panel looks at future of transportation in growing Kalispell

The Daily Inter Lake

Kalispell's booming growth means a lot more traffic, so many roads will have to be widened or built from scratch.

And widening the main roads can go only so far to relieve congestion.

Consequently, changes in how work shifts are scheduled and possibly setting up a mass-transit system should be explored, according to members of the area's Technical Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to the Montana Department of Transportation.

But committee members acknowledged that any sort of mass transit would be a long shot in most of Montana.

On Thursday, the committee looked at the next five years of state road-construction projects and at Kalispell's traffic predictions through 2030.

During the next five years, the state is locked into:

. Building the four-lane Reserve Drive Loop from West Reserve Drive near Glacier High School to U.S. 93 south of Costco.

. Rebuilding the Old Steel Bridge from a one-lane to a two-lane bridge.

. Finishing the widening of U.S. 93 for the five miles north of Kalispell.

. Beginning construction of the southern half of the U.S. 93 bypass around western Kalispell from U.S. 93 to U.S. 2 - with the portion north of U.S. 2 to be tackled later.

During the next 25 years, Kalispell can expect that several thousand houses to be built to the north and northwest of town will be annexed eventually, according to a draft Kalispell-area transportation plan put together by the Helena consulting firm of Robert Peccia and Associates. A significant, but smaller, number of homes are expected to be built to the east, south and southwest.

By 2030, the draft report predicts Kalispell and its immediate surroundings will have 16,000 new homes, 5,281 new retail jobs and 26,724 new nonretail jobs.

The draft report predicted that growth by 2030 would translate to doubling traffic on U.S. 93 (near Hutton Ranch Plaza), Foy's Lake Road, U.S. 2 West, Reserve Drive (west of Whitefish Stage Road), Willow Glen Drive and U.S. 2 (north of Montana 35).

The report predicted roughly 250 percent traffic increases on U.S. 93 north of Reserve Drive and on Conrad Drive east of Willow Glen Drive. A traffic increase of about 300 percent is forecast for West Reserve Drive west of Stillwater Road.

And it predicts a roughly 500 percent increase in traffic along West Springcreek Road north of Three Mile Drive, Whitefish Stage Road north of Rose Crossing, and on Farm-To-Market Road north of Four Mile Drive.

"Reserve Drive, dare I say, needs to be a five-lane roadway," said Jeff Key, head of transportation research for Peccia.

Dwane Kailey, Missoula district administrator for the Montana Department of Transportation said: "We can't keep going to communities and say, 'More lanes will solve your problems.' … We've got to lead the communities to combine growth and transportation planning.".

As Kalispell's planning director Tom Jentz put it: "This is the reality check of 'Is this is where you want to live? Is this what you want this place to be?'"

Committee members floated some trial balloons about light rail or some other mass-transit options, but did not think Montanans would be ready for those ideas.

They wondered what traffic thresholds must exist before the public would consider options beyond building and widening roads.

The committee told Key to look at the possibility of other street changes including adding roughly a dozen connecting roads, and calculate how those alterations would decrease traffic strains.

The committee expects to revisit the issue in late April and early May.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com