Kalispell charts path for missing sidewalks

Shanda Elavsky wants to let her two boys walk or ride bikes to Russell Elementary School, but it’s scary for her. She has followed them before and seen them almost get hit by drivers not watching out for people on the side of the road.

Elavsky’s home on Third Avenue East North isn’t far from the school: There’s just no good way to get there.

Sidewalks on East Oregon, Washington, California and Wyoming streets are nonexistent or spotty, running for a block or part of a block and vanishing for the next. Drivers use the streets to get across town without hitting stoplights on U.S. 2.

That traffic and a lack of sidewalks makes them riskier routes for kids to share.

“I just would like to be able to have them hop on the sidewalk and be able to go to school safely, but there’s no sidewalk for them,” Elavsky said.

Elavsky has asked city leaders if there’s a way to put more sidewalks in or to organize a fundraiser to help pay for the work. It seems there’s no quick or even identifiable fix in sight. If sidewalks can’t be put in, Elavsky wants Kalispell to at least do more traffic enforcement on neighborhood roads drivers use as shortcuts.

Something needs to be done to improve pedestrian safety before someone gets hurt, she said.

Her neighbor Karmen Guilfoyle has two school-aged children of her own and agrees. She’s just afraid someone getting hurt is what it will take to trigger any concrete action toward a solution.

THOSE CONCERNS not lost on Kalispell officials or on Bill Sullivan, principal at Russell Elementary School.

“You’ll be walking down a sidewalk and all of a sudden it disappears and kids have to go out into the street. There are lots of places around Russell like that,” Sullivan said.

“There haven’t been any accidents I’m aware of because of it, but certainly it is a situation that probably isn’t in the best interests of children.”

Trying to formulate at least a plan of attack, city officials are wrapping up a citywide sidewalk inventory. It identifies where sidewalks are, their condition and where sidewalks are missing. The findings are not good for parts of the city.

Elavsky’s neighborhood is just one area lacking sidewalks, particularly sidewalks that run east and west. Russell Elementary is just one school with concerns about the safety of students walking or riding their bikes on city streets.

Major roads such as U.S. 93, U.S. 2 and Center Street have gaps in their sidewalks and bike paths. That makes it hard for pedestrians and bicyclists to get across town or to destinations such as the hospital, community college and Kalispell Center Mall.

“It’s an issue in this town, one without a clear solution. But that’s going to be our job. We need to identify the critical areas and focus on how to solve those,” Kalispell Planning Director Tom Jentz said about missing sidewalks.

When asked about the issue’s size and the cost of fixing it, he added: “It’s probably going to be a little scary.”

In most areas without sidewalks, the city is paying for past decisions now seen as mistakes. Sidewalk requirements for new residential construction were not enforced for several decades. Some well-meaning people put sidewalks in, but many houses were built without them, Jentz said.

Houses built in the county and later annexed or surrounded by the city generally have no sidewalks. That problem promises to continue to confront Kalispell as it grows because the county — unlike the city — does not require sidewalks.

“The farther you get away from the city center on Main Street, sidewalk connectivity just drops,” Jentz said. “It’s more noticeable on the west side. In the southwest there’s just nothing there.”

THE NEXT STEP in the sidewalk inventory is identifying schools, neighborhoods, parks, shopping centers and other “activity nodes” that should have safe pedestrian access, according to Kevin LeClair, Kalispell’s senior planner.

“When we put those focal points on the map showing missing sidewalks, we can prioritize areas and come up with a plan of action to best invest public resources to build out a system,” he said.

Then comes the challenge of finding money to retrofit Kalispell with sidewalks.

The city has a limited 50-50 cost sharing program to help people replace hazardous sidewalks, but nothing in place to help build new sidewalks. And putting sidewalks in now might not be as simple as it would have been from the start. There are trees, fences, utility poles, driveways, parking spaces, gardens, irrigation systems and other obstacles to contend with.

The goal is to identify priority areas this winter, start working on at least some of them next spring or summer and then continue to pick away at that priority list as time and funding allow from year to year, LeClair said.

A GRANT-FUNDED project is chipping away at a bike-path gap on U.S. 93. The $82,000 project builds the path from North Meridian Road to Sunnyview Lane. It leaves other phases needed to extend the path south to Wyoming Street.

Kalispell is requesting Safe Routes to Schools money to build a bike path on Three Mile Drive. That would connect neighborhoods on the road to Kalispell Middle School and to North Meridian Road where there are sidewalks leading north and south and to other trails.

Safe Routes to Schools has awarded more than $5 million in six years for pedestrian safety projects around Montana schools, paying for both planning-level and construction work. This appears to mark the first application for any of that money for a project in the city of Kalispell.

“I’m not aware of anything done prior to this. I suppose it’s one of those things that’s been out there but not tapped into and it certainly needs to be. It is something that is coming to the attention of everybody, and that’s a good thing,” Sullivan said.

“There are needs for children to get to school safely and not everyone has the luxury of a ride every morning. We’re looking to make it as safe as possible for our students.”

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.