Board advocates concerns about highway expansion
courtesy photo
The latest rendering of a proposed Highway 93 expansion shows permanent and temporary impacts to Bockman Park.
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
RONAN – State and federal highway officials often point out the millions of dollars in road improvements the city of Ronan will receive if a highway expansion project begins as scheduled in 2018. The federal government will foot the bill for almost all of the $40 million expansion that will expand Highway 93 into four lanes split into two couplets, one that travels southbound where First Avenue currently lies, and one that travels northbound where the current highway is situated.
But some have expressed concern that the expansion will zoom through Ronan without much regard for what’s best for the town or its green spaces.
“They don’t care about us,” Park Board President Tom McDonald said in regard to state and federal highway officials. “That’s all they really say at the meetings is, ‘we don’t care about you.’”
State and federal officials responsible for the project aren’t explicit in their disregard for the town’s input, but they bend rules to suit the bigger government’s agenda in order to quash the smaller one, McDonald said at a Jan. 8 park board meeting.
“They say, ‘look, we’re giving you sidewalks,’” McDonald said. “That’s a design standard. We’re supposed to be excited about sidewalks? Who do they think we are, a bunch of illiterate hillbillies?”
The Ronan City Council is awaiting a tentative analysis from the Federal Highways Administration regarding whether or not the city should pursue a “constructive use impact” determination from the federal government. Such a determination would require the federal government to realign the highway so it does not impact Bockman Park, which would lose much of its parking and 411 square yards of land under current plans.
McDonald argues that it would be simple to prove the highway will impact the use of the park and trigger a constructive use impact ruling. Federal officials disagree.
“They are trying to play poker with us,” McDonald said. “They are trying to say ‘Ronan, you are a dummy …’ Even if we had a public meeting where 500 citizens came in and said ‘We don’t want it,’ (Federal Highway Administration) is saying that it’s for the greater good and they don’t care. It’s the Missoulians and Kalispell people that matter.”
In meetings, KLJ Engineer Kathy Harris has repeatedly tried to emphasize that her firm, who is designing the project, wants to give the town the utmost input, but it’s difficult for the tiny town to afford the legal resources to sort through the federal regulation to see if it has any options other than those proposed by highway officials.
“We don’t know where to get an opinion, because the only person we get an opinion from is sitting on the other side of the table and is a federal highways person,” Aipperspach said. “You know dang well they don’t care about us … How do we get somebody that can tell us one way or the other, that’s not affected by one side or the other?”
A constructive use impact determination might require an additional environmental impact statement, which could delay the project several years. Federal officials have already completed two previous environmental impact statements that include more than 800 pages of information, but McDonald said the documents did not address constructive use impacts. City council members have said that they town doesn’t want to keep the project from proceeding, but former Ronan Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Rolfsness asked what harm taking extra time would bring.
“What does it hurt?” Rolfsness said.
McDonald doubted the effectiveness of the entire project.
“If you are really after what’s best for Ronan, you leave it exactly the way it is and put more stoplights in,” McDonald said.
Routing the road through Ronan city government will allow travelers the option to stop and bring commerce, so ultimately it is a benefit to the town, but McDonald said the federal government has soured the process.
“I’m proud of the city government for saying keep it in the town, don’t do a bypass, but (Federal Highway Administration) is trying to bypass the rules and ram it down our throats.”
A preliminary determination about constructive use impacts on the park is expected by the end of January.
