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Road No Longer a Mirage

By Kellyn Brown

In January, I posed a question on flatheadbeacon.com asking when the U.S. Highway 93 Bypass would be finished. Of the 127 readers who responded to the unscientific poll, 53 percent of them said “never.” And who could blame them? The idea of building a highway to circumvent downtown Kalispell had been discussed for decades.

Then, in March, we published a story on how, even with federal stimulus funds being thrown around (seemingly everywhere), the bypass was still a long way off because the Montana Department of Transportation had secured right-of-way designations for just 155 (or 57 percent) of the 273 parcels needed for the road.

Moreover, at the time many of the affected landowners contacted by the Beacon said they were concerned by low appraisals when the deadline to have stimulus funding obligated to “shovel ready” projects was just 120 days away. While MDT Director Jim Lynch remained cautiously optimistic, pointing out that his agency was able to obtain more than 100 right-of-ways for a recent Billings project, Kalispell officials were less so. They were anxious during a subsequent meeting with Montana Sen. Jon Tester, pointing out that the construction industry here had been hit especially hard by the recession and they feared stimulus dollars would run out.

Two months later, those fears seemed to be justified. In May, landowners met with Lynch and their cantankerous moods indicated that many of the financial agreements needed were still a long way off. One openly stated that “I think we’re getting screwed” by MDT. And the crowd expressed almost unanimous disapproval of the agency’s recent actions and the bypass in general.

It’s not often that we give credit to an oft-derided government agency like MDT, which is an easy target because they oversee something that affects every Montanan. When’s the last time you complained about the condition or safety of a state highway? But, in this case, the agency deserves some praise.

Perhaps buoyed by the struggling Northwest Montana real estate market, landowners affected by the project’s southern portion began agreeing to terms with MDT. By September, there was just one left, and last month – to the disbelief of many longtime residents who thought they would never see the day – Lynch announced that the final parcel had been secured and said “a year from now, there could be people driving on that roadway. With all the moons aligned and the weather cooperating, that’s a possibility.”

To be sure, not everyone believes the $34 to $36 million in earmarks and stimulus monies to build the southern portion of the bypass, plus the millions more in federal funds used to secure the right-of-ways, is cash well spent. And I’ve previously criticized the so-called “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” for lacking oversight and being heavy on waste.

Nonetheless, if those parcels hadn’t been secured, our portion of the $212 million the state is using for highway and bridge construction could have gone somewhere else. In spite of reservations about the government’s spending spree, there is little doubt that the Flathead can use the jobs that building a new highway will provide.

The southern section of the four-lane road will begin on U.S. Highway 93 South near Gardner’s RV and Trailer Center and continue north until connecting with Highway 2 near Appleway Dr. The road will lessen the constant tractor-trailer traffic on Kalispell’s Main Street and, with hope, make the downtown area more pedestrian friendly.

There are still those who fear that the bypass could encourage potential customers to sidestep downtown, but it appears the majority of merchants – some of whom would prefer you call it the “alternate truck route” – and the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce support its construction. And Lynch, a Flathead native, should be commended for making it happen.