'In search of…' parking near Legends Stadium

It may get even harder to find soon

Parking space anywhere near Legends Stadium in Kalispell can be scarce during high school football games and track meets.

Combine that with jammed traffic on narrow streets and then try to navigate a fire truck or ambulance into an emergency situation - particularly on the 23-foot-wide section of Fourth Avenue West between 11th and 12th Street West, and the even narrower stretch to the south of 12th - and there's a problem.

Complaints about just such a situation prompted Interim City Manager Myrt Webb to team up with Acting Fire Chief Dan Diehl and Police Chief Roger Nasset to study streets across the city and make some recommendations on where parking should and should not be allowed.

City fire trucks need 20 feet of clearance, enough room for the truck's width plus firefighters to carry out operations around the truck. Fire code calls for that 20-foot clearance but city code requires only 16 feet.

Of Kalispell's 132 miles of residential streets, Webb found 20 percent are 27 feet or narrower, 60 percent are 28 to 35 feet wide and 20 percent are 36 feet or wider.

Parking can extend eight feet into the paved area, but there's no correlation between that regulation and individual street width.

Yellow curbs and red curbs indicate no parking zones throughout town. But enforcement of parking ordinances otherwise is uneven, Webb reported.

Perhaps his biggest future concern, however, will come a couple years from now when a computerized 911 dispatching system starts sending emergency responders along a route that is presumed to have ample clearance based on road width. He wants to be sure the drivers truly do have a clear route.

Diehl pointed out the problems snow banks can cause.

In one case, he told the City Council Monday night, fire trucks could not reach a burning house. Some areas, especially along Fourth Avenue West south of 11th Street when parked vehicles clog the streets, in reality have no fire protection from city trucks. The best-case scenario in such situations, he said, is to drag fire hose as firemen walk from the truck to the structure.

Nasset just wants the City Council's direction on parking enforcement for streets narrower than fire-code standards.

City Attorney Charles Harball said that adding specific streets to the city law on restricted or prohibited parking in certain areas would be the most effective way to tackle the problem.

On the other hand, people should have a right to park in front of their own home, council member Tim Kluesner said. And getting emergency vehicles into the Legends Stadium area is crucial in the case of, say, a bleacher collapse.

Council member Kari Gabriel reminded her colleagues that the first high school football game is Aug. 28 this year, so time is of the essence.

The city will enlist the cooperation of the Kalispell school district in coming up with a solution, then act on it at a council meeting over the next month.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com