Newest leg of bypass opens on Thursday

Kalispell’s newest section of U.S. 93 bypass in on track to open by midday on Thursday.

“Everything’s paved and striped. It’s ready,” Schellinger Construction Project Manager Nathan Malmin said Friday. “We just have another day or two of concrete work left” finishing up curbs.

With the intersection of U.S. 93 and West Reserve Drive rebuilt to accommodate the bypass, Schellinger Construction crews have been extending the four-lane bypass from there down to Reserve Loop near Glacier High School.

There are no roundabout in the new section. Construction began in early August on the $6.7 million project.

Heading south and west from the U.S. 93 intersection, a short connector named Garden Drive exits the bypass to the north. That road gives residents of Country Estates subdivision, Mountain Villa Apartments and other neighborhoods on “Reserve Place” — the stretch of West Reserve Drive that’s located east of Reserve Loop and that now dead-ends just west of U.S. 93 — a way to enter and exit the bypass.

From there, the four-lane road starts to climb as it continues southwest and ends just north of Reserve Loop. The bypass will be almost 100 feet wide where its main trunk ends for now. At that location, a two-lane exit ramp branches off to the north and runs back downhill to Reserve Loop, where drivers can turn left or right. Also at that point, a one-lane on ramp from Reserve Loop enters the bypass from the south.