Rerouting road to east may not work

A state highway official told the Flathead County commissioners on Monday that a design alternative to route all four lanes to the east side of the courthouse when U.S. 93 is reconstructed doesn’t pencil out financially.

Ed Toavs, Montana Department of Transportation Missoula District administrator, reiterated the state’s desire to keep working toward a design plan for the widening of U.S. 93 around the Flathead County Courthouse in case extra federal funding becomes available.

U.S. 93 narrows to a single lane each way around the courthouse and is the last stretch of highway between Whitefish and Somers that needs to be converted to four lanes.

“We’re very motivated to finish it,” Toavs said.

He and other highway officials met with the commissioners and city of Kalispell officials a year ago and asked government leaders to begin thinking about how they would like to see the courthouse couplet configured.

At that point one of the seven design options — a drastically different idea to route all traffic to the east — caught the attention of the commissioners, who see it as a way to create a pedestrian-friendly county campus.

“They hope it [rerouting traffic to the east] to be an option,” County Administrator Mike Pence said. “There’s been interest in four lanes on the east side for safety reasons, to make it better for pedestrians.”

There is foot traffic back and forth across U.S. 93 between the main courthouse and the county’s other three buildings to the west: the Earl Bennett Building, Justice Center and Courthouse West.

While the plan to shift traffic to the east makes sense in theory, the big issue is buying the properties on the east side of the courthouse to make that happen, Toavs said.

The Kalispell Foot and Ankle Clinic and McGarvey Heberling Sullivan and McGarvey law offices building would need to be removed to accommodate four lanes of traffic.

“The issue we have is that we’d have to prove necessity to buy the properties,” Toavs said. “And if there’s another alternative where we can avoid that” it may be more feasible to rebuild the existing split highway.

Pence said he understands the state’s rationale and admitted the eastside alternative “would be a tough sell” because the state prefers not to buy property if it doesn’t have to.

Owners of the law offices approached the county a while back to see if the county was interested in leasing the building for more office space, Pence said, but added there was no discussion about whether or not the building was for sale.

Commissioner Cal Scott said he was surprised by Toavs’ report.

“We felt in keeping with the campus concept it was best not to split the traffic,” Scott said. “We had indicated we were very much in favor of the four lanes to the east.”

Pedestrian crossings are a concern, Toavs acknowledged. The state is looking at pedestrian-activated crossing signals that would accommodate foot traffic.

The couplet rebuild likely is still a few years out yet, but if “grab bag” money — extra federal funding that becomes available in August or September — were earmarked for this area, the couplet could be an ideal project, he said.

The county’s recent purchase of the former State Farm Insurance building on South Main for additional county office space bodes well for the highway widening project because the county now owns all of the property and right of way on the west side of U.S. 93.

Several years ago the county removed the two annex buildings that flanked the main courthouse, which also gives the state additional room for the rebuild.

Both the county and city will have input about how to handle pedestrian safety, parking and landscaping.

“I want a follow-up discussion,” Toavs told the commissioners. “Where you’re at with renovating the old jail, it’s a good time to discuss this. The [highway rebuild] is long overdue.”

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