POLSON — U.S. Highway 93 around Flathead Lake is one of the busiest highways during the summer months with numerous accidents and traffic delays.
The road is becoming so busy that it is starting to affect businesses in Polson. However, there may be some relief on the way as Polson is looking to add a sort of bypass.
“It's something that I think is really important. I mean right now, downtown businesses suffer because of the traffic. I mean, it's so thick that people don't want to go downtown and shop and you can't get onto the highway or off the highway. You can't make a left turn unless you're at a stoplight,” said Lake County Commissioner William Barron.
The City of Polson has been working to create a sort of bypass that would use Seventh Avenue, Hilcrest Drive and Ridgewater Drive to divert some traffic out of downtown.
The goal is not to take tourist traffic from downtown but rather to give local residents a way to avoid Highway 93.
“Traffic and Polson is horrendous in the summertime. And the hope of having a bypass like this that goes through town is that it will take local people off of the main road. If I live up in the hills or another side of town or something instead of going down and getting onto the main highway with all the summertime traffic, I would take Seventh Street across and go out to where I need to go. And the hope and the thought is that it would really ease a lot of the traffic issues on the main highway through town." - Lake County Commissioner William Barron
The estimated cost of the project is $8.2 million. So far, the city has paid for a high-level study that evaluated the feasibility and potential effects of the bypass. But they do plan to apply for grants to cover the $8 million for design and construction.
“They've done a feasibility study, and they've got that finished. Now they've contracted an engineer for some follow-up that has to be done. They've really been pushing this, moving it ahead,” said Barron.
There is no timeline for when construction will start but the City of Polson hopes to start the preliminary design in the spring of 2024.
This new bypass is expected to improve access and response times for emergency services while also reducing the number of crashes seen on Highway 93.
“If you go into Town Pump or one of the businesses along the street there...you're waiting there for a long time before there's break enough in traffic that you can get out and get into it and get moving. And you see people taking risks every day, getting into traffic and ... [there are] quite a few summertime accidents,” said Barron.
We will keep you updated on the progress of this bypass.
