Col. Falls embarks on 20-year traffic plan

What are the most traveled streets in Columbia Falls? How can the city improve transportation? Where should the next bike path go? Those and many other questions will get answered in the coming months as the city of Columbia Falls embarks on an urban transportation plan.

Last week the city council approved a $114,000 contract with transportation planner Kadrmas Lee & Jackson to devise a plan that will make transportation projections and needs through 2040. The grant is paid for in part by the state and $50,000 from the city.

The study will include, among other things, traffic counts on busy sections of roads, public meetings and other input.

Planners likely will set up a project advisory committee, along with the company and the Montana Department of Transportation to look at future needs. That effort will start in earnest in the coming months.

Some needs that are already of the table include rebuilding 13th Street West in front of the high school and Fourth Avenue West to the Truck Route.

The city is hoping the second time proves to be the charm in trying to get a federal grant for that project.

The city wasn’t awarded a federal BUILD grant, as it’s called, when it applied last year. That project alone is expected to run about $12 million.

Another street project is 12th Avenue West from U.S. 2 to the Truck Route.

Glacier Medical Associates is remodeling the former Plum Creek Cedar Palace into a medical clinic. It will need city sewer and water.

The total price tag for that project is approaching $2 million. The city earlier this year decided to put tax-increment funding toward it, but that will fall well short of the actual cost.

The city is hoping another federal grant — one that helps cities that lost industry — will help pay for the project.

The cost of the water lines alone is about $900,000.