Glacier Park officials focus on new public transit, Many Glacier road construction

As Glacier National Park rounds into its 110th year as an established national park, officials have a full plate as they brainstorm how to resurrect the park’s recently terminated public transit system, prepare for major road construction in Many Glacier and consider how to address parking congestion, among other issues.

As a guide for ushering in the new year, Glacier National Park Superintendent Jeff Mow said the park will use parts of the recently completed Going-to-the-Sun Corridor Management Plan to address some of the challenges related to transportation, parking and more.

The comment period for the plan wrapped up nearly two months ago. Park officials received approximately 532 comments on the corridor plan with 75% of those coming from Montanans and the rest coming from 31 other states.

The plan was six years in the making and a draft was officially released in September. The sizable document, which Mow says should be finalized by late January, serves as a loose blueprint for the park to manage multiple growing pains that have developed over the years as park visitation has ballooned to “unprecedented levels.”

“We can use these plans in a variety of ways. If we want to try something new, we would test it on a small scale,” Mow said.

And while park management is still sifting through the public comments, themes regarding the changes park visitors would like to see are emerging.

According to Mary Riddle, chief of planning and compliance at Glacier National Park, concerns and suggestions surrounding parking permits — specifically those for overnight parking in the corridor — assumed the lion’s share of the commentary.

“There was anything from worry about the safety concerns of hikers coming out late in inclement weather, to some about how cars parked in lots overnight would limit parking for others looking to stay in the lot for only a brief amount of time,” Riddle said.

The plan ambitiously proposes to, among other undertakings, restrict overnight parking during peak season in the park and implement a phased day-use parking permit system beginning with Logan Pass and St. Mary and Virginia Falls Trailhead while using certain design parameters. At a recent public meeting on the plan, attendees expressed interest in the proposal to limit overnight parking, with a few people pointing out how cars left overnight in the already-cramped parking lots occupy spaces for those who wish to park their vehicles only for a short amount of time while exploring the given areas.

ASIDE FROM parking, Riddle said a fair amount of commentary was centered around requests for expanding the park’s popular public transportation — a system that has fallen apart in recent weeks after Flathead County severed its longstanding cooperative agreement with the park to maintain and operate its shuttles.

At an early December meeting, the Flathead County commissioners voted unanimously to terminate the 13-year agreement, pointing primarily to how the county’s Eagle Transit department had been tasked with doing too much with too little for far too long.

Since first entering into the cooperative agreement in 2007, county officials said over time the park has failed to adequately adjust its budget for maintenance, operation and administration costs over time. Lisa Sheppard, director for the Area IX Agency on Aging, which oversees Eagle Transit, said the partnership had “not been working well for quite some time,” and that inadequate funding for the aging fleet had led to safety concerns with the shuttles.

The day the commissioners decided to pursue a termination in the agreement, Commissioner Phil Mitchell said “we’re playing games with the park and this is what I call a gross, gross government bureaucracy at its finest.” That same afternoon, the park issued a press release announcing officials were pursuing options for providing a shuttle service for the 2020 season. Mow stated, “now is the time to reset and think about what makes sense for our future.”

Mow elaborated in a recent interview that the rehabilitation of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which wrapped up in 2018, served as a catalyst for implementing a new system as management is now able to move onto “the next big thing.”

“The thinking there was with the construction of the rehab, a transit system would help reduce the number of vehicles on the road and reduce congestion. But when visitation really spiked, it didn’t serve that purpose as well as he had hoped,” Mow explained.

Mow also said in 2007, when the system was first put in place, there was a large level of buy-in from the Montana Department of Transportation, which saw the shuttle’s winter-use program as a heavy asset. But Mow said that program is no longer available and therefore, partners aside from the park no longer saw as much value with the accord.

“As a cooperative agreement, the idea is that there is mutual benefit. To the park, to the county, to the state of Montana. There were different facets of that agreement, and some of the parties felt like they weren’t seeing the benefit anymore,” Mow said.

Now Mow said it’s high-time to rethink the system, as park visitation is only expected to steadily climb in the coming years, with the main focus turned toward how to make it through the 2020 season.

While the county is, effective today, no longer tasked with operating and maintaining the shuttles, the buses are still owned by the park, and Mow said one option — at least for the upcoming summer — is to bring in an outside company to do the work that was previously performed by the county. This is already offered by Glacier in the form of its red bus fleet, which is operated and maintained by Xanterra. But prices to ride one of the 33 buses are a far cry from free, with a ride and tour from Apgar to Logan Pass costing $64, as one example.

Glacier National Park spokeswoman Gina Kerzman said the park also is considering moving to vans, an option that would bypass the need to hire drivers with commercial driver’s licenses, as is required to operate a shuttle.

Mow also discussed the county’s recent pitch for The Mountain Climber, a bold plan for a complete overhaul of the Flathead Valley and Glacier National Park’s transit system unveiled by county officials in September. The plan, fashioned after the successful system in Acadia National Park, requires substantial buy-in from the park, among other stakeholders.

Mow said while he was pleased the county took the time to research Acadia’s system and see how it could be replicated in Glacier, he said he and the regional office had expressed interest in pursuing other research on other national parks’ transportation systems.

“The county learned a lot from one place, but I think the regional office will bring in the multi-level insight after looking at several other parks. Their perspective is to look at what is happening at Glacier and how does it compare to other parks?” Mow said.

Kerzman said the park is finishing its research on how much it might cost to operate an efficient public transportation system for the upcoming summer. A decision on how to provide that service should be reached within the coming weeks,she added.

WHILE OBSTACLES involving public transportation and limited parking will consume the majority of Glacier management’s attention in 2020, the park also recently announced crews are expected to break ground on a major two-year construction project on Many Glacier Road in April.

Mow said park-goers should essentially steer clear of the popular Many Glacier end of the park for the next two seasons while the road, which has been a major point of contention in recent years, gets a much-needed facelift.

According to a recent press release, the project will “significantly increase travel times to the Many Glacier area,” and visitors should expect “travel delays of up to 40 minutes each way from Babb to the Many Glacier Hotel.”

For the duration of the project, the entire Many Glacier Campground will transfer to reservation only in order to reduce congestion in the area. Once construction is complete, a portion of the grounds will revert back to first-come first-serve.

“This is a big undertaking that we are excited to finally start,” Kerzman said. “This is something the park has been in need of for quite some time. Our biggest concern is giving people enough of a heads-up so they can build it into their plans.”

Mow acknowledged the construction may be frustrating for visitors, but said it should be seen as an opportunity to explore other areas of the park and outside of the park that see less visitation. He suggested the more northern areas such as Bowman Lake and others and said areas surrounding Glacier such as the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Canada and the Cabinet Mountains offer similar beauty.

“We know Glacier is tremendously popular,” Mow said. “We are called the Crown of the Continent and although we may be at the center of it, there is a lot to explore around the park as well.”

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4407 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com