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

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

I didn’t plan how I was going to get out of Missoula to visit my Grandparents in Havre soon enough.  I figured that some combination of sharing a ride, taking the bus, and hoping a train would get me the 278 miles from Missoula to the Havre.  I was wrong. 

First, my requirements:

1. I had to work Tuesday night in Missoula until 11:30 PM.
2. I needed to be in Havre by noon on Turkeyday.
3. I could have caught a ride with my parents from Helena to Havre no later than Wednesday afternoon.
4. All told, I had a 36.5 hour window of time to get from Missoula to Havre.
5. It’s a 4.5 hour drive, but I don’t have a car/don’t believe in using a car unless I have too.

Here is a catalogue of the problems that I encountered:

1. I couldn’t take Amtrak from Whitefish to Havre, because I couldn’t get to Whitefish.  The bus to Whitefish is not synchronized with the train in either direction, so I would have had to spend a night each direction in Whitefish.  Couldn’t afford a room, too cold to camp, didn’t want to be delayed by two days.
2. I couldn’t take the bus to Helena in time to ride with my folks, because it was an 8-hour-ride.  The bus to Helena (an hour-and-a-half drive) goes to Butte first.  After a layover and a change of carriers, I would arrive in Helena 7 hours and 55 minutes after I left Missoula — too late for my parents’ schedule.
3. I couldn’t use the campus-sponsored rideshare program, because nobody was going where I was.  The trips available on Facebook-integrated GoLoco.org would get me to Helena, Whitefish or Great Falls, but before or after my 36.5 hour window.

I don’t mean to nag and complain about this, but I am pretty dedicated to getting from A to B in any way but the Single-Occupant Vehicle, and I couldn’t do it.  People who need or want public transportation should be able to get around this state with at least moderate conveinence.  If I wasn’t able to borrow my girlfriend’s car (she took the Greyhound to Billings), I may have been stuck away from my family for the Holiday.  A few goals/solutions that come to mind:

1. Public Transportation should be timed such that it is roughly competative with driving when possible.  There should be direct bus routes (at least once a day) to and from most major towns in the state.  Helena is the capital, and you can only get to it by bus from Great Falls or Butte once per day.
2. A mid-way hotel stay should not be necessary when traveling across Montana by bus or train.  Connections to and from different bus/train legs should line up with each other for easy transfers and efficiency in travel.
3. Corridor bus transportation should be frequent and cheap.  Rimrock Trailways could get wheelchair-accessible coaches and apply for federal funding to increase service from Whitefish to Missoula and back; several times a day would serve commuters and those connecting to Amtrak’s Empire Builder.  This model could also be extended to the Havre-Great Falls-Helena-Butte-Dillion corridor segments.
4. Restoration of Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha route should be expedient.  Daily trains serving southern Montana would allow for bus resources to be re-approapriated to other areas that need the boost.