From 4 lanes to just two

It looks as if the proposed four-lane Kalispell bypass initially will be built as a two-lane highway.

That decision was dictated by the rate that federal dollars likely will come together for the project.

"We believe this is the best economical way to build an interim highway," said Kathy Harris, a traffic engineer with Great Falls-based Stelling Engineers Inc., which is designing the bypass for the state.

No one at a Thursday Technical Advisory Committee meeting - including a handful of city and county officials - objected to that likely change.

The committee likely will provide a formal recommendation to the Montana Department of Transportation next spring, speculated Tom Jentz, committee chairman and Kalispell Planning Director.

The Technical Advisory Committee advises local and state governments on highway issues in the central Flathead Valley.

Two other details emerged out of Thursday's workshop session:

. The U.S. 93 bypass pricetag has grown from a 2007 figure of $100 million - which includes two major proposed interchanges - to $111.1 million, and likely will increase much more. That's because construction costs are rising and will continue to rise.

. A proposed road behind Mountain View Plaza and through Hutton Ranch Plaza appears to be sidetracked for a long time. That's because committee members are leaning toward spending all the allocated federal money on the actual bypass.

The proposed bypass is supposed to begin on U.S. 93 South near Gardner RV and swing west for eight miles through two big interchanges and over eight bridges to reconnect with U.S. 93 north at West Reserve Drive.

The state expects to finish buying right-of-way easements on this route in 2009.

If enough federal dollars materialize, the Montana Department of Transportation believes that 2009 is the earliest that construction could begin. But committee members noted that the nation's declining economy and the massive Wall Street bailout probably will hurt future Congressional highway appropriations.

The bypass project has been split into three segments - Gardner RV to U.S. 2 West; U.S. 2 West to West Reserve Drive; and the Mountain View Plaza-Hutton Ranch Plaza back highway to help relieve congestion at the West Reserve-U.S. 93 intersection.

The southern Gardner-U.S. 2 West segment is the likeliest to be built first because local governments and business interests support that timetable.

Committee members believed an initially cheaper and quicker-to-build two-lane bypass would have a better chance of getting Congressional money than a four-lane project that would also take longer to construct.

The committee seriously looked at Gardner-to-U.S. 2 West cost estimates of $31.7 million and $34.9 million.

Those would include two lanes, bridges, a bicycle path and single- or multiple-lane roundabouts at key intersections. Interchanges would likely come later because of their great expense.

The highway would be designed for 60 mph traffic with the likely runabout speeds being 25 mph.

Committee members discussed - but reached no consensus - on whether removing the bike paths could trim $1 million from the bypass costs.

Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall pushed to keep the Mountain View Plaza back road as a top priority, arguing that would make traffic safer in that commercial area.

However, other committee members appeared cool to that argument.

Although not a committee member, Mayre Flowers, director of Citizens for a Better Flathead, argued that such a back road would benefit primarily businesses in that area.

Also looming in the background is the fact that Kalispell's northern border has moved three miles north of West Reserve Drive to Church Drive since West Reserve was chosen as the bypass' northern end. Also, the future huge Glacier Town Center complex will be north of the bypass' northern end.

Consequently, the bypass' eventual northern end will intersect one of Kalispell's busiest intersections in the middle of a major commercial area.

It is up to the committee and the local governments - not the state - to decide whether any bypass efforts should extend north of West Reserve Drive, said Dwane Kailey, Missoula district administrator for the Montana Department of Transportation.

There are no current plans for Kalispell to seek federal dollars to extend the bypass north of West Reserve Drive, Jentz said.

Instead, the city government plans to have current and future developers in Kalispell's northwestern area build major thoroughfares along the outside of the expanding town to create a de facto bypass north of Reserve Drive toward Church Drive, he said.