Discovering Transit in Montana

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

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

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

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.

There’s an old Catch 22 in public transportation: People won’t ride transit unless it is frequent and convenient. On the other hand, transit providers can’t afford to increase service and frequency unless they have the riders to justify it.

In traffic engineering, the paradigm is different. The typical practice is to build roadways to meet demand in 20 years. This increased capacity induces demand. An example: when North Reserve Street was expanded to 4 lanes, development occurred at an accelerated rate, and the 20-year traffic projections were exceeded in a mere 6 years.

Currently, the Montana Department of Transportation is studying what to do about regional transit greater Missoula area. The consultant recommends a stepped approach to adding transit service: a little here, a little there - as demand increases. This method is inherently short-sighted. A twice-daily bus to and from Lolo is not enough to be convenient, so people won’t use it, and the trigger point for adding more service won’t be reached.

Conversely, ASUM Transportation offers bus service so frequent that you don’t even need a schedule, and their ridership is through the roof. Buses have standing-room only. In less than ten years, ridership has increased from under 4,000 rides per year to over 300,000. (That’s about a 7400% increase.)

While 10-minute service from the Bitterroot is a little excessive, the consultant and the state need to keep in mind this old idea: that if you build it, they will come!

A public meeting regarding the plan will be held on December 5th from 4:00 to 6:00 at the Grant Creek Inn in Missoula.