OPINION: Undercutting the Gordian knot of the courthouse couplet

Here is a simple but effective way to deal with the U.S. 93 problems at the south end of Kalispell and have two lanes northbound and two lanes southbound at the county facilities at 800 S. Main St. without the previous traffic problems. This kind of solution is done all over the world including in the U.S. All the proposed solutions so far involve going around the building and jail at this location including possibly tying up other parallel streets. The simple solution to this problem is just to take U.S. 93 under the county courthouse and historic jail building.

Depending on how deep the basements and foundation footings for the above two buildings are, the two lane southbound part of the highway could start angling downward under the two buildings between either Sixth and Seventh streets or Fifth and Sixth streets on the north side of the buildings. The two northbound lanes of U.S. 93 south of the two buildings would start angling down under the buildings either between 10th and 11th streets or 11th and 12th streets. There would be major foundational concrete footings and retaining walls at the west and east sides of the four lanes under the buildings and entire ramp areas, and another major footing under the buildings dividing the two south bound lanes from the two north bound lanes to give additional support to the two buildings on top of the highway. The entirely below-ground-level north- and southbound lanes would be structurally divided. A water pumping pumping station and collection system for both storm runoff and groundwater would have to be designed to keep the four lanes and areas under the buildings dry at all times. Lighting would also be required with back-up systems for this and the water pumping system.

U.S. 93 south of the county buildings would have to be widened to two southbound and two northbound lanes down to Airport Road. The east-west streets from Sixth Street down to 11th Street (depending on where the highway starts to tunnel under the buildings from both ends) would just pass over the highway tunnel to facilitate east-west travel in this area.

For 360 degrees around these two buildings, with the exception of maybe Eighth and Ninth streets, the area around the buildings would be free of roads allowing for better parking and easier and safer access to and from the buildings. Possibly a small park-like area could be set up around the buildings. This is assuming that the jail here gets moved as reported on lately in the news.

So far all of the proposed solutions for U.S. 93 in this area are half-baked solutions and don’t really solve the highway traffic problems in this area at all. Even when the two northbound and two southbound lanes of the highway went around the buildings in the past, both north- and southbound lanes got strangled down to one lane severely backing up traffic in both directions. Access to and from the buildings at that time was almost suicidal! If the Montana DOT doesn’t have the in-house engineering talent to design this simple solution project, then there are plenty of good highway structural engineering firms in this country that can.

I also don’t want to hear that this solution is too expensive. Enough government funds over the last 25 years have been spent on studying this project to death that this solution could have been built twice over.

The U.S. 93 Bypass was another badly conceived idea because where has anyone before ever seen 20 mph roundabouts on a major highway? The truckers take this route only once and then switch back to Main Street. At best, the bypass is a test-driving course. Where did the idea come from to pile dirt up in the middle of the roundabouts? There is nothing like blocking the view of oncoming cross traffic to set up a potential accident. But why worry about this? I see more deer on this highway than vehicles.

The county is not without their street snd traffic degign problems either. I’ll save Reserve Drive, Willow Glen Drive, and other traffic problems in and around Kalispell for another day. And the city of Kalispell’s street beautification projects just made city driving more difficult, and ice and snow will just spall all that orange concrete back into bad dry “Redimix.”

How about just getting the traffic problems in the area fixed once and for all?

Wills is a resident of Lakeside.