Page 16 - Flathead Beacon // 10.12.16

COVER
BYPASS
The Kalispell Bypass from Lone Pine State Park. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
RUEADY TO ROLL
ltimately, it’s simply a hub with one of the busiest Main Streets maybe even as early as Oct. 19.
road: 7.6 miles of asphalt in Montana, and who have speculated LHC, the Kalispell-based construction blazing a new trail along that the bypass was nothing more than company that was awarded a $34 million the western outskirts of the Flathead Valley’s greatest fairytale, bid to complete the project over the last Kalispell from the south- the perpetual question has remained: year, is putting the nishing touches on
ern gateway to the northern tip. Will this road ever actually be built? the four-lane, ve-bridge north section
From a concept in the 1940s to the largest transportation project in Montana history,
the Kalispell bypass is nally complete.
BY DILLON TABISH
Yet it’s much more than that. The The wait is over. The bypass is built. Kalispell bypass has long been one of The single largest transportation project
of the bypass, o cially called the U.S. 93 Alternate Route. A grand opening cere- mony with local, state and federal leaders will be held sometime this month, with
an exact date soon to be announced, but state transportation o cials say the road will be ready to roll before Nov. 1.
“There’s no other project in the whole state that impacts a community and area like this one does,” said Jim Mitchell, the Montana Department of Transpor- tation’s engineering project manager for the bypass over the last 10 years. “It totally changes the whole landscape and infrastructure of the area.”
Yes, it is simply a road, but also a his- toric milestone that many people thought Kalispell would never reach.
“I can’t believe it, to be honest with you,” said Doug Rauthe, a Kalispell native and former mayor and downtown busi- nessman who is now retired. “This has been going on since I was a boy.”
round the same time the Allied forces were combating the Nazis and approaching victory in World
the city’s great aspirations. Dating back to the 1940s, it represents a vision from the post-World War II boom era, when growth seemed unavoidable, and log- ging trucks and semi-trailers increas- ingly rumbled up and down the cozy two lanes of Main Street, clogging the val- ley’s main thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 93, with a deluge of four-lane tra c. In a wide-open state where highways are the lifeblood of communities, and in a valley isolated from the sprawling inter- state system, this so-called bypass, when completed, could be both a savior and a catalyst for the historical heart of the city and the surrounding area. That much was agreed upon.
But for generations of residents who have stood through decades of waiting and wondering, who have pleaded and debated designs and redesigns of this ambitious new transportation route from one end of town to the other, who have seen Kalispell burgeon into a regional
in Montana history, roughly $140 million, is set for completion in the coming weeks,
“I didn’t think it would get built in my ifetime.”
lA
War II, a communitywide discussion began in earnest in Kalispell. The town
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OCTOBER 12, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
Crews build an overpass near Glacier High School along the Kalispell Bypass. BEACON FILE PHOTO