On Fourth Avenue, a worry about speeding cars

Mack Williams has lived on Fourth Avenue West in Columbia Falls for decades, but he said he’s never seen so many speeding rigs traveling past his home. The speed limit, when school in session, is 15 mph. But Williams told city council Monday night people are routinely doing 35 to 40 mph. 

Williams has tried to slow down speeding motorists, but says he gets a rather poor reception from the speeding public.

“Something needs to be done,” he said.

Williams is concerned it’s a matter of time that someone walking to the high school or Glacier Gateway Elementary — the street is a main route to both — gets hit. Crossing guards have long complained that some motorists simply don’t stop, even when they’re crossing children from one side of the street to the other.

Columbia Falls Police Chief Dave Perry promised more patrols on the road.

Rebuilding Fourth Avenue is priority for the city. There is Montana Department of Transportation funding available for urban streets and Fourth Avenue is a top city priority, Columbia Falls City Manager Susan Nicosia noted later in the meeting. But the annual funding amount is about $160,000 annually and it accumulates over time. At that rate, the city would see work on the street in five years — 2020 — at the earliest.

That project would include new curbing, gutters and other amenities for the road, which is only .7 of a mile long.

In other city news:

• Council held two public hearings, one on community needs for low income residents and the other for an economic development plan for the industrial park north of town. No one from the public spoke on either. The city will continue to take comments on both issues until the end of the month.

• Councilwoman Jenny Lovering, who also oversees the Columbia Falls community garden, said the garden was winding up operations for the year. Gardeners donated more than 253 pounds of food to the Columbia Falls Food Bank.

• Councilwoman Julie Plevel said she heard from a resident of Third Avenue West who said she wasn’t happy about the way her yard was left after a city sewer project on that street. About a quarter of her yard was still mud.

• Mayor Don Barnhart noted a resident was happy with being reimbursed after a city crew was working outside her house. Vibration from the work rattled items off a shelf and broke the glass on her stove top. She contacted Public Works Director Grady Jenkins and was reimbursed for the cost of the stove top repairs.