Bypass 93 opens after decades of planning

It’s been a long time coming.

That’s the overriding sentiment of those who have waited years, even decades for the Kalispell U.S. 93 Alternate Route to become a reality.

On Wednesday afternoon, the southern half of the long-awaited westside highway bypass opened to vehicles.

The state Department of Transportation sent an e-mail — with exclamation marks — to local media alerting the public that the new route was open. The media alert came on the Flathead’s first snowy day, with a reminder to watch for ice on the bridges.

Drivers also should watch for workers and equipment as shoulder works continue on the new route, the advisory noted.

To say the bypass has been a long time coming may be an understatement.

For nearly 60 years plans for an alternate route around Kalispell have been discussed, studied and debated. It’s been on the back burner, the front burner and everything in between.

The project gained momentum in 1992 when an environmental impact statement was published. The following year a feasibility study recommended the western route.

“It’s a great thing. It means a lot to the valley,” said Larry Brazda, a retired state highway engineer who spent many years entwined in the process of getting an alternate route to divert traffic around Kalispell’s downtown core.

“The 93 corridor is getting pretty congested,” he said, especially in north Kalispell where most of the retail growth has been in recent years. “My wife drives through Kalispell every day and it’s very difficult to get through Kalispell.”

Brazda, who lives south of Kalispell, said he plans to make good use of the new route and planned to try it out today.

“It’s been a long time coming,” he added.

Kalispell Planning Director Tom Jentz said the alternate route was one of the first projects he worked on when he joined the Flathead Regional Development Office in 1984.

The western route started to gain popularity in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the feasibility study was completed that the focus zoomed in on the western route. Jentz remained involved at the planning level in the early 1990s.

“It’s a great day for Kalispell,” Jentz said about the opening of the alternate route. “I think it’s phenomenal.”

When Department of Transportation Director Jim Lynch addressed the Kalispell City Council during a work session on Nov. 8, he told city leaders that many people thought the route wouldn’t be completed during their lifetimes.

Some Kalispell leaders didn’t live long enough to see the bypass completed.

Then-Kalispell Mayor Thomas Flynn, who died in April this year at age 96, published a guest editorial in the Daily Inter Lake on Jan. 1, 1967, in which he noted the need for a bypass, pointing to a traffic bottleneck even back then around the courthouse.

Flynn predicted that by 1975 Kalispell would have “a bypass road to take heavy truck and through traffic out of the city.”

The $22.6 million project, built with a blend of state and federal highway dollars and some stimulus money, has its southern terminus at U.S. 93 just south of Gardner’s RV and Trailer Center. From there the route heads west, curving to the north to follow along an abandoned railroad bed. The bypass then crosses Airport Road, curving northwester across Foy’s Lake Road to U.S. 2.

The recession actually worked to the state’s favor in funding the southern half of the project. Initially, it was estimated the first half would cost between $34 million and $38 million.

Ames Construction of Utah built the 1.5-mile section between U.S. 2 West and Airport Road for $13.6 million. Knife River Kalispell built the 1.5-mile stretch between Airport Road and U.S. 93 South for $9 million.

There are eight parcels of land left to purchase for the northern half of the bypass. Those properties are appraised at about $2 million, Lynch told the City Council. About $34.6 million is still needed to complete the northern-half two-lane route.

The northern half will continue the route from U.S. 2 across Two Mile Drive, Three Mile Drive and Four Mile Drive, east of Stillwater Road. It will then continue north until it crosses under a northeast/southwest power transmission line and parallels the transmission line back to U.S. 93 at West Reserve Drive.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com