Discovering Transit in Montana

Denver - This morning on KCFR, Colorado’s all news NPR station, Ryan Warner spoke with Colorado Governor Bill Ritter about the precarious state budget on his show, Colorado Matters.  While much of the program (which you can listen to by clicking the “Denver” link) dealt specifically with Colorado state budget issues, a key topic of discussion was the Federal Highway-User Trust Fund.

This trust fund will be in a deficit position in 2009, according to the Secretary of Transportation.  This fund is a key source of state transportation dollars, so a deficit in this fund is a major problem for large, mostly rural states like Colorado and Montana, which must maintain a massive transportation system with relatively small populations.  In other words, we can’t pay for tens of thousands of miles of highway without outside help. Governor Ritter’s Blue Ribbon Committee on transportation funding calls this a “quiet crisis,” a description that is well applied in my opinion.

Everyone complains about the state of our transportation system, whether it be potholes and congestion, to a lack of sidewalks and transit.  Even though people complain about such things almost as often as the weather, most people do not realize that rural states like Montana are in a constant struggle to gather enough funds to maintain the existing system.  So when roads reach their carrying capacity, like Russell and Reserve Streets in Missoula, dollars that would normally go to maintaining the entire system for 10-20 years must be diverted to meet the new demand.  With the trust fund reaching a deficit, future expansion/improvement projects will be difficult to fund.  Lets not even go into the increasing construction costs, we all know about that.

So what happens when you don’t have the dough to build an engineer’s dream roadway?  You probably already figured out where this is going, but the only way to add carrying capacity to a roadway without an expensive project is to add transit into the mix.   Transit is a far less expensive way to add capacity compared to cementing more lanes, plus it has all those great perks, like less pollution etc…  Montana towns and cities will have to rely a great deal more on mass transit to meet future road demand.  This time transit is essential not just because its a good thing to do, but also because it is the only thing the state, cities, towns, and taxpayers can afford financially.

- Benjamin

Atlanta - This morning’s NPR Morning Edition told the story of an Atlanta family that has taken advantage of new community design to reduce their energy use and emissions.  Atlantic station is just one of many new developments across the country that are oriented around alternate forms of transportation and convenience.  In this sort of development, proximity to work, home, recreation and retail is the priority.  One only has to walk minutes from bed to office, office to food aisle, and from dinner table to theater.  Should one want to travel, most developments of this type are located on rapid transit lines that whisk residents to downtowns and airports.  Most of these developments have so far been only as infill developments inside large cities, like Atlanta and Denver.  However, small cities like Missoula are also ideal for green community design.

The Key Word is Small

Cities like Missoula, and the smaller towns that dot the landscape nearby, are like tiny islands of urban density surrounded by seas of wilderness.  Realistically, if one wants to get from one island to another, or even within Missoula during certain times (night time and Sundays), the car is the only choice.   Certainly there is limited regional bus service on Rimrock Trailways or Greyhound, but these services are not convenient for the commuter.  What Missoula and surrounding communities lack in regional transit, they have as an asset in their size.  Missoula is the size of a single, large Denver neighborhood.  I know, I lived in one for two years, and my University/Washington Park neighborhood was remarkably Missoula-scale.  This size makes it very easy to travel without a car compared to large, sprawling cities where one finds these new green communities.

In Stevensville, my residence is a three minute walk from the grocery store, ten minutes from the Olde Coffee Mill, two - ten minutes from most churches, ten minutes from the local Stevensville Playhouse, six minutes from the school, and a similar walking distance from every part of Stevensville’s business district.  Sound familiar?  The green community in Atlanta is not a new idea, but a reinvention of how towns, cities and neighborhoods were once built.  Stevensville and Missoula, being small towns and cities, have the advantage of missing the large scale sprawl that most of America have fallen victim to.  This means we have the ability to adapt our communities to be green far easier than Atlanta, Denver or any other sprawlopolis can.

We Have a Choice

We have the walkable, cyclable and busable size these new developments seek, but we are missing the  necessary infrastructure.  Stevensville is small enough to walk to every corner of it in less than fifteen minutes, but it lacks a non-car connection to nearby communities.  Missoula has a decent bus system and trail system, but it could be more convenient. Combined with the smart move closer to one’s job,  investment in alternative transport infrastructure will make Missoula and the surrounding towns model green communities.  Think about this when we’re all pumping $4/gallon gas this summer, and imagine that money invested in better communities.

- Benjamin

Darby - It is has become evident that our cousins in the south valley do not share the same opinion of the Bitterroot Valley’s future that the majority in the central and north valley do; a future in which growth is regulated based upon a shared vision of what our rivers, communities, farmlands, forests, and slopes should look like for generations to come. I do not blame the residents of the Darby School District for how they feel, for increased government regulation does represent something that much of Montana has been able to escape…large scale change.

While I respect and even understand the views of many in the Darby area, I must disagree. We have a natural and justified tendency in the Rocky Mountain states to inherently distrust regulation from government. But this is not a distant federal government ignorant of the particular needs of the local people, this is a government of fellow Bitterrooters. The policy of planning our growth through zoning is not a conspiracy for government domination over individual rights, but a solution to the crisis of rampant development that has the potential to destroy all that makes the Bitterroot Valley special.

There is clearly a difference in perception between the Darby School District and those of the north end of the valley. In the same decade that saw 13% growth in Ravalli County between 1990 and 2000, the Darby area changed the least, since most of that growth was concentrated in the Florence, Lone Rock, and Stevensville areas. The influence of Missoula’s growth and inflation in housing prices has caused much of this north valley development, and residents of these districts are desperate to hold on to the rural character of their once sparse landscape. Only Stevensville has been able to hold onto a shred of independence from Missoula by planning for the town’s future with a focus on emphasizing its core values. This is what the county wide zoning initiative hopes to accomplish. It does not seek to control every aspect of our lives, but to take control of our destiny and make our valley something to be proud of.

We have two distinct futures: One where the Bitterroot Valley is transformed into Missoula-South by out-of-state developers; a vision of an unending column of houses marching across the landscape from Hamilton to Miller Creek, and a future where we grab hold of our own destiny and focus the inevitable growth in a way that strengthens our existing communities, protects our agricultural heritage, and saves our natural wonders for my generation and our descendants. I for one do not want to see that first future, one that has already occurred in countless valleys across the world. It is irresponsible to think that Darby will be unaffected by the unplanned future simply by its distance from Missoula. We are in this together. We cannot achieve a desirable future if we are not united in its vision, just as the United States would not have achieved independence without unity against tyranny. The precedence of a single school district opting out of the county wide zoning will make it very difficult to make the vision of our preferred future a reality.

- Benjamin

Missoula - While transportation improvements to the Miller Creek area have now lost funding, congestion is continuing to increase, and more is on the way as the Teton Addition, part of the Maloney Ranch subdivision, begins construction. Today the Missoulian reported (see Missoula link) that Missoula County lost $1.27 million that was meant for a roundabout designed to relieve congestion at the intersection of Upper and Lower Miller Creek Road. It is easy to try and find blame in a disaster such as this, and there is plenty to go around at both county and federal levels of government, but I think such superfluous rhetoric misses the point.

The entire Miller Creek area, including Linda Vista and Maloney Ranch, was a flawed design at the start. This part of Missoula is a great example of what not to do when planning the transportation infrastructure of a new neighborhood. Outside of the Missoula city limits when the Miller Creek area was first developed, county officials dropped the proverbial ball when these subdivision designs were approved. If Missoula County had used strict guidelines regarding efficient transportation access and impact fees, perhaps the developers of that land would have provided the extra funding needed for additional road access other than the lone Miller Creek Road. Now, a few decades later, the cost of the poor design is still being inherited by current and future Missoulians. This poor design is compounded by the lack of any public transportation from Mountain Line.

Has the lesson been learned? I would hope that our current elected officials have learned from this ordeal. It is far easier, and cheaper, to get it right the first time around rather than to try and go back later and fix bad transportation design. Even with this simple lesson, subdivisions like Maloney Ranch have still been approved by both city and country officials without developers paying for their share of infrastructure improvement. They reap the benefit of real estate sales, yet take no responsibility for the increased strain their development puts on an already taxed system. The least they could do is pay for bus service to the area, which would benefit home sales anyway.

As more land in the valleys of Western Montana is converted to homes and businesses, I hope that the lessons of Miller Creek are remembered by our local officials. This latest development proves that we cannot always count on federal funds to bail us out of transportation messes created at home. The solution starts locally, before the earth movers go to work.

- Benjamin

Stevensville - Following the loud and clear public declaration last year of the need for county wide planning and zoning, the new Ravalli County Commissioners, James Rokosch, Kathleen Driscoll and Carlotta Grandstaff, have pushed the process into high gear.

The Ravalli County Planning Department, in association with the two consultant firms DTM Consulting and Geum Environmental Consulting Inc., have started with an analysis of the county’s existing conditions in order to model the land area that is suitable for development. I can only assume that the next step in the process would be to use the model as a base for public participation and professional evaluation, which would then modify the base analysis towards a final zoning plan. While all of this is a bit technical, the zoning team did put together a decent power point presentation explaining each layer of the land suitability model. The working land suitability model can be viewed by clicking its link, be aware that it does take some time to load. (Other maps and documents can be viewed on Ravalli County’s website)

This is the first step towards a comprehensive growth plan for Ravalli County. While the final plan will likely not look the same as the suitability model, this analysis does a good job of easily ruling out many areas as future locations for development. It reduces the amount of land needed to be evaluated for zoning to a more manageable amount. Now the public and experts alike can focus on the intermediate to best lands, particularly those around existing urban density and infrastructure.

Land use planning and transit must go together, for it is only common sense to direct residential and commercial development into areas already served by existing transportation infrastructure. Transit is also much more efficient when there is more density. If a majority of the future growth in the Bitterroot Valley is focused around the existing density of Hamilton, Stevensville and other Ravalli communities, then a future transit system in the valley will be far more efficient and affordable. The beauty of more density is, quite literally, the beauty of a landscape with less sprawl, and this is of great concern to Ravalli County residents. This is a continuing planning process, and I will post more on this issue as information and inspiration coincide.

- Benjamin

You may have read Hummer Jake’s comment on Missoulapolis that ‘bicyclists don’t count.’ According to Jake, bicyclists don’t pay, and therefore don’t matter.

Now read Daniel Nairn’s great response. Daniel crunched the numbers. Turns out, it’s actually the bikers subsidizing the drivers. Nice try, Mr. Hummer…

Despite a strong showing from the business community at last week’s Envision Missoula meeting, Missoulians were overwhelmingly in support of increasing density and transit within our community. This goes to show that when we zoom out and examine the bigger picture, most everyone agrees that we need less congestion and air pollution, achieved through more transit. It’s on the micro-level of specific projects where many people don’t agree.  Unfortunately, this list of projects is an integral part of the process.

Some background: creating a long range transportation plan is a federally mandated process that ultimately results in the dispersal of federal money for transportation projects. The LRTP includes a list of specific projects in order of priority with funding levels needed for each project in the plan. In the past, this has been a dream list of oversized roadways all around town. The reconstruction of Russell Street is a project that will cost tens of millions of dollars, and will likely be pretty high on the list this time around. But, as always, there is a shrinking pot of money for an ever-larger list of projects. This year, it would be most wise to include increased transit service at the top of the list of projects.

By including transit projects that can receive funding in the LRTP, Mountain Line can expand their service as funds become available, rather than being put on the back burner so our roads can get more and more bloated.  Mountain Line and transit advocates should focus on the following priorities as the list of projects is developed:

1. Increased mid-day service on all routes.  All routes should run ever 60 minutes at minimum all day long.  Popular routes should run at least every 30 minutes throughout the entire day.
2. Night-time bus service on popular routes.  Routes with demand for night service should run until at least 11:00 or midnight to accommodate night-shift workers as well as people shopping and socializing around town.
3. Increased peak-hour service on all routes.  15-minute service during commute hours will relieve full buses, and present riding the bus as a more attractive option to commuters.
4. Sunday service.  Service on Sunday will never be full of riders, but is an essential social service for people who cannot or choose not to drive themselves.
5. Service to new areas.  The Bitterroot, Clinton/Turah, Polson/Plains… these outlying communities have unmet transportation needs, too.

Certain community members may balk at these suggestions, but my response to Joe Real Estate who just ‘needs his SUV’: more people on public transportation means more room for you in your gas-guzzling abomination. Everybody wins.

I’ve traversed the length of Highway 93 South more times than I can count. When you are from Stevensville, it can’t be helped. I learned to drive on 93 and its smaller counterpart, Eastside Highway. My parents commute on it regularly. Everyone I know in the Bitterroot risks everything during their Bitterroot commute, and sometimes these commutes end in tragedy. Now with gas prices hovering around $3/gallon, the commute is now more expensive than many Ravalli County families can afford. Even with its high price, it is the only way to employment and income, so other things are sacrificed to pay for the increasing cost of the commute.

After all of this comes the issue of congestion, an issue not nearly as important as those mentioned above. Lets be honest, the congestion on Highway 93 South isn’t really that bad, but it certainly is worse than it used to be. Missoula’s channel 8 (KPAX) has been doing a series on traffic congestion in the Missoula area, and one of their stories centered on the Bitterroot Commute. I found it interesting that the only part of this issue they focused on was the congestion problem, which they termed “growing gridlock.” Now I know local news likes to exaggerate, but “gridlock” is ridiculous. According to the 2000 census, 3,200 people commuted regularly between Ravalli County and Missoula, and that number has surely grown. Even if we allow for growth, the number of commuters is still relatively small. Even so KPAX did find some Bitterroot commuters that agreed with their severely negetive assesment of 93 South.

‘I think they need another highway’ says Stevensville Resident, Darlene Burgess. ‘I think that they need to prepare now for another highway. I came from Washington, and these people don’t really know what traffic is. I’ve seen the signs. You come just past Florence and it’s traffic. And it’s only going to get worse.’

Darlene is right, to a point; it is only going to get worse from here. I do not agree that there needs to be a second 4-lane highway. Lets use a “big city” example here, but its not from Washington. Between Boulder and Denver, Colorado is US 36, a 4 lane highway that has served as the only link between these cities for many years. Needless to say the number of commuters between these cities is far more than the 3,200 recorded in Ravalli County’s 2000 census. So what has allowed US 36 to remain the only major highway between Boulder and Denver? Something must have added capacity without adding highway lanes. That something is called transit.

Missoula - Ravalli Bus System

I spent a bit of time fiddling around with a Montana Department of Transportation highway map in microsoft paint, and came up with a possible bus system that links Ravalli County towns together, as well as to Missoula. With only 4 routes, every town north of Hamilton is linked on both Highway 93 and Eastside Highway (Route H for Hamilton, S for Stevensville, F for Florence, and E for Eastside Highway; the X routes stands for Express, as there is the possibility for future express routes that would have limited stops, and are therefore faster).

The beauty of the Bitterroot Valley’s long North-South orientation along 93 is that the further north you go towards Missoula, the greater the frequency of service, and it is the north valley that has the most commuters. This geographical fact would allow a Missoula - Ravalli Bus system, I like to call it MR Bus, to provide frequent bus service in Florence and Lolo with fewer buses added to the entire system. In fact, this system could work with 10 buses; 2 buses per route, plus 2 spare buses for maintenance rotation and emergencies. Connection to a central station in Missoula would allow free transfer onto Mountain Line’s local system, and UM’s bus system.

The point is that for less than the cost of a new highway, we could add capacity to Highway 93 with 10 55 passenger regional coach buses. Riders would even have their own reading lights. More than adding capacity and reducing congestion, a transit system offers greater safety to riders, and puts money back in their wallets that would otherwise go to the pump. It seems that the Montana Department of Transportation agrees with me:

Officials with the Montana Department of Transportation say that there isn’t enough money to currently fund a new highway or to add on to the existing road. Instead, the MDT is recommending more vanpool, carpool, and even bus services for the corridor.

I dare say that vanpools aren’t really doing much to help add capacity, we need buses for that. Sorry MRTMA.

- Benjamin

The “realistic” approach to Missoula’s “transportation infrastructure” woes, as “envisioned” by one member of the less “progressive” sector of Missoula’s “business community:” (quotations are “fun” aren’t they?)

MBIA Members! I am forwarding a message from the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce regarding two transportation planning meetings this week on Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon. Of some 300 people attending prior meetings there was very little presence of the business community/MBIA/Realtors or other “working” people. The “brainstorming” that occurred at the earlier meetings resulted in an extremely heavy bias for Light Rail, Bus, Paths and Bike Trails. This meeting will be to choose between the top three alternatives suggested at the last workshops. Many business people feel this is a very misguided and “Pie in the Sky” approach to transportation/land use planning. WE NEED TO TURN OUT AS MANY BUSINESS PEOPLE AS WE CAN or this plan, which will be used to guide future transportation planning for our community, will be very slanted toward bike/ped/bus/light rail interests and will be slanted away from growth issues relating to both commercial and residential development. Make no mistake. OPG is spending a lot of money for this study and it surely will be used for future planning!

Please try to attend and be prepared to be critical if you see this planning effort being misdirected.

Thank You!

Jim Leiter
Community Affairs Director
MBIA

Very interesting. I wonder what they would consider as non “pie-in-the-sky” transportation solutions. Since they call bike/ped/bus/rail “pie-in-the-sky,” the only alternative would be road/highway oriented solutions. I really wish I could attend these meetings (as I am in Denver currently), and I hope some of you “pie-in-the-sky” folks do. Lets not forget that the national trends are moving away from car only/highway investment, a fact it seems Jim Leiter, the author of the MBIA email, seems to have no knowledge about. Jim Leiter’s concept of “realistic” transportation infrastructure would repeat the mistakes of Los Angeles, Denver and other sprawl-o-lific cities of the late 20th century. I should remind Jim that Los Angeles and Denver are currently spending billions to re-engineer their failed highway transportation systems towards more transit/bike/ped. If Jim wants to do the same with Missoula’s infrastructure, he sure wont be doing it with my tax dollars.

Given the additional expense related to car focused infrastructure, in both engineering costs and socio-economic costs, I am surprised that a businessman would think it was the only realistic option. Business people, being focused on the bottom line, should naturally conclude that transit, not additional highway infrastructure, is the least expensive option for both government and the traveling public. Less private money spent on gasoline = more private money spent at local businesses. Less public money spent on expensive highway infrastructure = more public money spent upon improving business districts, and recreation opportunities; investments that make the community a more desirable place to live and visit (the simple economic concept of opportunity cost).

Speaking of the bottom line, Missoula simply does not have the public or private funds to build a highway focused transportation system, particularly in a $3/gallon + environment. The only “pie-in-the-sky” reality I see is one where Missoula bankrupts itself on massive concrete thoroughfares, bypasses to nowhere, and clogged Reserve Street IIs that only push Missoula’s air quality into further non-compliance. Perhaps a medical analogy would help, one that I am sure a non-pedestrian Jim Leiter will understand (walking/exercise = pie-in-the-sky, remember). When a human’s arteries get clogged the best solution is not to widen the circulatory system, but to reduce congestion through a change of lifestyle. Transit and bike/ped, like quaker oatmeal and exercise, is the best solution to reduce Missoula’s high transportation cholesterol.

- Benjamin

Last night, the final public comment period was held for the Five Valleys Transit Study, and it was an all-too-typical format.  The audience was talked at for an hour, and in the end, questions, comments, and suggestions were diffused by citing national statistics and “because-I-said-so” reasons.

The study, in conjuntion with the US-93 corridor study that is going on simultanously, cost somewhere between $400,000-$600,000, and the end result was (paraphrased): ‘Demand exists to run a bus and a few more vanpools to and from the Bitterroot, but there isn’t any money to do so.’  Two things we already knew through common sense!

Here’s a suggested better use of $400,000-$600,000: put commuter bus service from Hamilton to Missoula on the ground for two years, promote it like hell, and figure out how to sustain it (tax district, local-option gas tax, etc). 

In transportation planning, many planning processes leave much to be desired.  The saying goes that there is DEAD planning and LIVE planning.  (DEAD =  Decide, Engineer, Advocate, Defend or LIVE - Listen, Investigate, Verify, Educate) 

It looks like we’re at another impasse: the study is over and we still can’t afford what we knew we needed all along.