State eyes reclassification of Kalispell's West Reserve Drive

Officials with the Montana Department of Transportation are looking into potentially redesignating West Reserve Drive from a state urban route to a state primary route — a switch up that could allow for more money to be allocated toward widening the busy road to five lanes and enable the road expansion to get underway much sooner.

According to Ed Toavs, Missoula District administrator for the Department of Transportation, West Reserve currently is designated a “minor arterial” within the state urban route system in the Kalispell area. The designation of urban areas is one based mostly on census information that identifies various population clusters and then determines which are considered urban and which are not, Toavs said.

However, an urban route system falls below many other systems in the state’s transportation hierarchy, including interstate highways, state primary and state secondary highways. Toavs said with West Reserve Drive already classified as a minor arterial, the road meets various qualifications to be considered part of the state primary system instead.

“It already qualifies to be designated as a state primary,” Toavs said. “If we can get it taken off the state urban system and put it on the state primary system, there is a greater pot of funding available for more immediate construction.”

With West Reserve’s standing classification as part of the urban area, the state can only pull from a pool of funds ranging from about $500,000 to $750,000 annually, Toavs explained. But the first phase of the long-sought transformation of West Reserve from two-lane to a five-lane road is estimated to cost as much as $20 million. That means in today’s dollars and with the current designation, it would take 28 years to address the first mile of the 3.5-mile stretch between U.S. 2 and 93, not accounting for inflation, according to a report prepared by Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell and sent to the council and mayor in support of the reclassification.

The Kalispell City Council on Monday will vote on a resolution of support for the state redesignation of West Reserve from a state urban road to a state primary road.

According to Russell’s report, the first phase would include the widening, construction of a new intersection at Whitefish Stage Road and a replacement of the bridge over Stillwater River that “is aged, is showing signs of settling, and is showing early stages of safety concerns and bridge-deck deterioration.”

Toavs said the cost estimate also includes the money needed to buy right of way necessary for the widening, relocation of power lines, sewer lines and other infrastructure costs.

The push to reclassify West Reserve couldn’t come at a more pressing time, according to the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce President Joe Unterreiner.

“The traffic on West Reserve Drive has reached a crisis level,” Unterreiner said. “Growth in this valley has skyrocketed.”

According to a city report, Kalispell is the second fastest growing area in Montana and last year was rated as the second fastest growing micropolitan statistical area in the nation. From 2000 to 2010, Kalispell grew 42 percent and is meeting its mark of an additional 25 percent from 2010 to 2020.

According to Toavs, about 17,000 to 20,000 vehicles drive the road every day. He said West Reserve, which acts as the primary connector between U.S. 2 and U.S. 93, can no longer support the community’s growth.

“Between the main highways and the newer bypass and other arterials, Flathead County is kind of on this big grid network,” Toavs said. “Then you add developments like the ones at Hutton Ranch and all of a sudden this two-lane built in the ’80s [West Reserve Drive] can’t handle the traffic pressure.”

Toavs said aside from Russell Street in Missoula — another extremely congested two-lane road currently being constructed into a five-lane road — West Reserve Drive racks up the most public complaints about roads in all of Northwest Montana. He said the two state owned and operated roads have been on the transportation department’s construction check-off list for years.

Every five years or so, the department works up what is known as a “red book,” or a five-year budget plan for major road projects throughout the state.

Toavs, who has been with the department for eight red-book cycles, said one challenge of pursuing the reclassification of West Reserve will be determining which other construction projects may have to be placed on a temporary backburner.

“If you insert a $20 million project into the red book and it will require two or three years of work, the question is what $20 million will be stalled elsewhere? When you have finite funding, what are you going to prioritize?” Toavs said.

Should the reclassification occur for West Reserve, state officials are not yet sure which other project would be placed on hold.

Toavs said reclassification begins when the Kalispell Technical Advisory Committee votes on whether to pursue it or not, which he said will most likely be unanimously approved soon. The committee also collaborates closely with Transportation Department Director Mike Tooley. Should the state decide to proceed with the reclassification, state officials will then work with local Flathead County officials on how to proceed with potential construction.

Toavs said one minor hiccup the department is anticipating is the need for a potential classification analysis to assure the road is actually a minor arterial. However, he said if an analysis is performed, he sees no reason why it wouldn’t classify as at least a minor arterial, if not a major arterial.

Toavs said he anticipates almost all stakeholders in the construction of West Reserve Drive, from the state and the county to the local residents, will be on board for the change.

Reporter Kianna Gardner can be reached at 758-4439 or kgardner@dailyinterlake.com