Traffic study details options for courthouse couplet

Creating an eastside bypass on Willow Glen Road and turning Kalispell’s First Avenues east and west into one-way streets are among the alternatives traffic engineers have identified for rebuilding U.S. 93 around the Flathead County Courthouse.

The Kalispell City Council and Flathead County commissioners learned about projected traffic loads and various lane configuration scenarios during presentations Monday and Tuesday by engineers with Robert Peccia and Associates.

Even though the U.S. 93 Somers to Whitefish West project has been underway for well over two decades — the environmental impact study was completed in 1994 — the rebuild of the federal highway from Seventh to 13th streets in Kalispell is still years away.

Jeff Key, traffic and transportation group manager for Peccia, said the reconstruction of U.S. 93 from Somers to west of Whitefish is complete except for the courthouse couplet.

It’s the “glaring exception,” he said.

In 1994 the preferred alternative was a four-lane design through downtown Kalispell, but much has changed since then, particularly the upcoming completion of the U.S. 93 bypass.

A detailed traffic analysis, the impact of the bypass and projected traffic growth through 2040 were factors considered as Peccia and Associates developed eight alternatives for the courthouse couplet rebuild.

“Whatever you do [to the U.S. 93 couplet] there are ripple effects on everything else,” Key said.

Roughly 18,000 vehicles travel around the courthouse each day, the study found. If the four-lane alternative were chosen, the traffic count would increase substantially, to about 31,000 vehicles per day.

Peccia traffic engineer Scott Randall said traffic projections show increasing traffic in the courthouse couplet area even with the completion of the bypass.

“Even if we do nothing other than develop the whole bypass and left everything else the same,” the traffic increase for the six-block area would be .36 percent annually, Randall said.

The volume of traffic that would be funneled down Main Street is a big concern to Kalispell city officials who want to protect the retail integrity of the downtown corridor.

“We don’t recognize this as Highway 93, then see this as Main Street,” Kalispell council member Phil Guiffrida said at Monday’s work session meeting with Peccia and Associates. “The reality is that this is Main Street to us and we want to keep it Main Street from an aesthetic and user standpoint.”

Several council members echoed Guiffrida’s statement. Most were concerned with the traffic that could continue to congest the downtown area. Randall said the alternatives were not developed based on actual street capacities, and council member Tim Kluesner suggested a new alternative model could be explored that directly alleviates traffic on Main Street.

“Something that retains or re-establishes that downtown niche we all remember,” Kluesner said. “I’m not discounting anyone, but maybe there’s another idea.”

One of the lane configuration alternatives is two-lane traffic on Main Street, a scenario that could re-establish diagonal parking downtown. Limiting traffic to two lanes would force more traffic to side streets, but even so, about 16,000 vehicles daily would travel through the courthouse couplet.

County Commissioner Gary Krueger questioned whether 16,000 vehicles could get through Main Street, especially if diagonal parking were installed.

“Every parking spot becomes a controlled intersection” as cars back out of parking spots, Krueger said.

The study looked at various one-way street alternatives, turning both First Avenue West and First Avenue East into one-way streets. One scenario shows Main Street as a southbound one-way street with First Avenue East as a northbound one-way corridor. Another option shows a one-way route northbound on Main Street, with a southbound one-way on First Avenue West.

All three county commissioners expressed interest in two Willow Glen Road alternatives. Those scenarios would create an eastside bypass on Willow Glen from U.S. 93 south of Kalispell to the intersection of U.S. 2 near Snappy Sport Senter in Evergreen.

One Willow Glen alternative would keep the current four-lane configuration through Main Street, while the other would create just two traffic lanes through downtown Kalispell.

“Willow Glen would relieve a lot of traffic,” Commissioner Phil Mitchell said. “This would be a huge upgrade.”

Randall said there are separate traffic demands for both the westside U.S. 93 bypass and eastside Willow Glen Road.

“If you decrease traffic downtown, the bypass is not affected,” he said. “The bypass functions by itself.”

Both Willow Glen Road alternatives would greatly increase traffic on that road, to about 14,000 vehicles per day. That’s roughly triple the current vehicle count of 4,000 to 4,500 vehicles daily on Willow Glen.

The next step of the planning process is to get public feedback on the eight alternatives. A public forum will be scheduled in a couple of months to begin narrowing down the alternatives.

Peccia’s study did not look at the county’s request to consider shifting all lanes of U.S. 93 to the east side of the courthouse as a safety measure for pedestrians. That proposal would be considered during the design phase of the couplet rebuild.

There will be a formal public comment period for the draft traffic engineering study. The 67-page report is available on the city of Kalispell website at http://www.kalispell.com/mayor_and_city_council/documents/2016CourthouseCoupletmemoandRPAEngineeringStudy.pdf.

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

Reporter Seaborn Larson contributed to this story.