LETTER: Hospital's growth should be matched by new infrastructure

I am impressed with the scope and services that the planned pediatric wing at KRMC will offer. This $40 million project should give Northwest Montana patients, visitors, and residents the sophisticated care they have often had to seek elsewhere.

What is NOT sophisticated is the land use planning and traffic infrastructure in the H-1 zone that is overdue for major improvement.

Still unrealized is the pedestrian/bike path required for a Certificate of Occupancy for the Phase #2 ER expansion. This was a condition in the PUD adopted by the city in 2011. The proposed pediatric wing is planned to be built on top of or near the site of the path.

The internal H-1 zone connectivity is fractured around the hospital.  Streets do not align. Sidewalks are hit and miss. Patients, visitors, construction workers, employees, and staff must frequently walk in vehicle travel lanes or on ice- and snow-covered grass in the winter. Private streets with different levels of maintenance and rights of way connect to public streets. Day-care centers have non-conforming access and play spaces that front on streets.  

A comprehensive action plan for addressing long-term traffic issues in the H-1 zone should be a prerequisite to building new hospital facilities. A comprehensive traffic study is needed ASAP.

Public safety is already jeopardized by continual construction in the hospital vicinity. Revamping all traffic circulation, accommodating future shuttle services, and looking at the future of Grandview Drive should be priorities for both the hospital administration and city of Kalispell. —Margaret S. Davis, Lakeside