OLSON – The Montana Department of Transportation has scheduled a public meeting to discuss safety issues related to Highway 35.
The meeting will be in Somers on Nov. 12.
Efforts by some east shore residents to ban or partially limit truck traffic on Highway 35 have been ongoing since at least 1975, when a fuel truck crashed and exploded, burning a nearby home to the ground.
This week, another truck ran off the narrow highway and crashed near a Flathead Lake subdivision.
State officials have put up more signs and added no-passing zones and guardrails in the past year in an effort to reduce accidents.
“We want to bring people up to speed on what we’re doing, and what we’ve found,” MDOT director Jim Lynch said.
Those who favor a full or partial ban say there are too many homes with too many driveways too close to Highway 35, which sits much closer to Flathead Lake for most of its route than does Highway 93.
Some truckers prefer Highway 35 because the east shore route is more level, saving them time and money.
“We’re going to have to look at what the cause is — is it a behavioral problem, or an infrastructure problem? And what the solutions are,” Lynch said.
Lynch said nothing is out of the question when it comes to trying to make the road safer. However, he called rerouting some or all truck traffic to Highway 93 a trade-off because it would send traffic through more populated areas such as Polson, Lakeside and Somers. He said traffic there faces similar winding conditions as on Highway 35 between Lakeside and Somers.
“A truck accident on either shore has the potential to be bad,” Lynch said. “Really, all over the state, most of our roadways follow waterways.”