MISSOULA — With an eye on future transportation, the City of Missoula is chipping away at its Long-Range Transportation Plan and prioritizing roughly 200 projects — many of which have no funding.
Transportation manager Arron Wilson said the plan is updated every four years and during that cycle, two to three recommended projects are completed while several new projects are added.
The updated plan long-range plan is slated for an open house in September.
“We have this goal of developing a comprehensive list of projects,” Wilson said. “We have a really long list of projects — close to 200 — that we've been working with. We typically manage to check off two or three of those between each long-range plan update.”
As the city considers a project for listing, Wilson said it's categorized into one of four groups including bike and pedestrian needs, complete streets, safety, and roads and bridges. The latter group of projects are often the most expensive, he said.
“The roads tend to be creating new roadways. There are very few of those projects,” Wilson said. “Russell Street is a prime example. We've been working on that for 30 years. The cost of inflation is going up about as much as the annual allocation we can commit to it.”
According to the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Russell Street project carries an estimated cost of more than $42 million. The South Avenue Bridge is also listed at an estimated cost of $18.5 million.
In comparison, projects listed under complete streets come with a lower cost. Among them, bike lane extensions on Third Street are estimated at $3,200 while intersection improvements and bike lanes on Stephens are estimated at $76,000.
“High-cost projects, like Brooks and Scott Street, are in the tens of millions of dollars. Annually allocated MPO funding usually isn't enough to get those projects done,” Wilson said. “We may not be funding all of our Tier 1 projects because of that cost. But leaving one big Tier 1 project off the recommended list could allow us to fund ten Tier 2 projects.”
Since the last long-range plan was adopted, the Metropolitan Planning Organization has secured $62 million in federal funding for major projects. They include $24 million for the Highway 200 corridor through East Missoula and $25 million for the Downtown Safety and Mobility Project.
The latter includes a lane reduction on Higgins Avenue to Broadway, converting Front and Main streets back to two-way traffic, and bike lanes and dedicated turn lanes on Higgins.
The Missoula Redevelopment Agency also approved bonding to fund improvements on Scott Street, and the agency is working with partners to position the Brooks Street corridor project for federal funding.
“Once we get through this initial scoring and ranking process, the next step is identifying our recommended project list, where we look at what money we have to fund,” said Wilson.
The last Long Range Transportation Plan was adopted by City Council in 2021. That plan recommended roughly 71 projects valued at around $208 million through 2050.
Of that, around $112 million was earmarked for complete streets, $20 million for active transportation and $33 million for roadway extensions.
