Discovering Transit in Montana

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.