Council seeks more information before moving on traffic calming policy

Kalispell City Council took the first run Monday night at a policy aimed at implementing measures to address vehicle speeds on existing city streets.

After discussing the draft policy on traffic calming measures during its work session meeting, Council asked city staff for additional information before moving forward. One area of concern for Council and the public seemed to be the emphasis on addressing vehicle speed, but not the volume of traffic on a street that can impact a neighborhood.

The policy is intended to provide guidance as to when traffic calming measures such as reducing street widths or adding traffic circles may be considered for installation, how they would be funded and what is required for public support before moving forward.

Public Works Director Susie Turner said this is the first time the city has looked at this type of policy.

“The Public Works Department will use this policy as our guide rails in implementing traffic calming measures, the locations and how they get funded,” she said. “It’s a pretty important document and process.”

The draft policy outlines four main types of traffic calming measures including limiting the ability to drive in a straight line by creating shifts in the roadway, changing the height of the roadway to force motorists to slow down, reducing street widths thus naturally lowering vehicle speeds, and creating physical barriers such as medians.

The policy comes following the Move 2040 Transportation Plan adopted in 2021 to overhaul Kalispell’s transportation infrastructure. The plan suggests about 90 traffic changes that could be made to local roads and intersections in the next 20 years.

Following the adoption of the plan, Council tasked city staff with drafting a traffic calming policy.

City Senior Engineer Keith Haskins said the traffic calming measures would only be considered for installation when a known issue with speeding has been identified and supported by engineering traffic review.

“Traffic calming should be installed when speeding is involved,” he said. “It’s not really something that’s intended to be applied everywhere.”

The calming devices in the policy are expected to be used with already constructed streets rather than new developments, he noted, because new developments should be appropriately designed to meet safety goals.

Discussion about the amount of traffic on East Oregon Street partially prompted the creation of the policy, but the street wouldn’t qualify for traffic calming under its criteria.

Haskins noted that the policy focuses on mitigating traffic based on speed rather than the volume of traffic through an area.

“If we can establish that East Oregon is being used as a cut-through, we could develop another policy for that,” he said.

The policy sets out a procedure for determining what projects qualify for calming measures.

Residents, business owners, homeowners associations or city staff can initiate the process with a request. City staff will review those and determine if they are viable. Further analysis then takes place, including data collection on traffic volumes and speeds.

Upon determining that a project qualifies for traffic calming, support for the project must be shown. The requesting party must obtain backing — in the form of signatures — from two-thirds or 67% of the property owners within 330 feet of the project area.

Then preliminary engineering designs can be completed for the project. A neighborhood meeting also must be held.

Next, if no other funding source is available such as a grant, the project must be fully funded through the creation of a special improvement district composed of the property owners within 330 feet of the limits of the construction of the project.

Finally, the engineering design must be completed once funding has been secured, and City Council would approve the project.

Councilor Jessica Dahlman, who noted that she was hit by a vehicle as a child, questioned whether the city should take on the responsibility to pay for improvements because of safety concerns even if there isn’t buy-in from property owners.

“If a neighborhood doesn’t elect to do this and the street remains unsafe I would think the burden should fall on the city to make it safe,” Dahlman said. “I want Kalispell to be safe.”

City Manager Doug Russell pointed out that ultimately it’s the driver of the vehicle who is responsible for driving in a safe manner.

Councilor Ryan Hunter suggested that if East Oregon has been identified as a concern in terms of traffic volume then that should be addressed.

“If we have standards that don’t allow us to provide a solution then the standards need to be changed so we can implement that,” Hunter said.

DURING PUBLIC comment, folks brought up concerns about traffic across the city and also how traffic calming measures might be paid for.

Walter Roundtree said housing is changing with more out-of-state property owners which could make it harder to get owners to support a special improvement district that would pay for the measures.

Laura Reynolds said in addition to the safety improvements, changes to streets could have the benefit of making less traffic noise, noting that it’s difficult to have a conversation while walking along Main Street.

“It could make some places more pleasant to walk,” she said.

Charisse Dufficy, who lives on the corner of Fifth Avenue East North and East Oregon, suggested adding stop signs to East Oregon as a way to deal with the traffic volume on the street.

“The traffic on East Oregon feels very unsafe,” she said. “There are lots of young families and children there. We see a lot of people using that to cut through and it’s not maybe a speed issue, but it’s a volume issue.”

“Do we want East Oregon to be a neighborhood or a bypass,” Tim Dufficy added. “Because that’s a concern for those in that neighborhood.”

Mayre Flowers, with Citizens for a Better Flathead, said it would be valuable to figure out how other cities, like Bozeman, have paid for traffic calming measures.

“The crux of the whole program focuses on whether neighbors will tax themselves to pay for these traffic calming measures,” she said. “We need to make sure that is a viable option.”

She said it’s important to also look at whether the city’s development standards hold new development accountable for its impact on already existing roads.

Features Editor Heidi Desch may be reached at 758-4421 or hdesch@dailyinterlake.com.