Association asks for Sun Road funding

The National Parks Conservation Association is calling on the Obama Administration to fund a host of projects through his proposed economic stimulus plan, including $21 million for the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The Sun Road rehabilitation project will effectively run out of funding sometime in 2009. The project got off the ground with $50 million in earmarked funding from a 2005 federal transportation bill.

That funding was supposed to last five years; but with skyrocketing construction costs, it will only last four.

The road is still in need of urgent repairs, however.

“The Going-to-the-Sun Road is the most important project in Flathead County now,” said Will Hammerquist, Glacier field representative for the NPCA.

The $21 million in additional funding would further alpine section repairs to the road.

The Sun Road project could fit the bill, as the Obama Administration is looking for projects that could be started within 90 days.

Phases of the Sun Road reconstruction are already engineered or in the process of being engineered — they just need funding.

NPCA’s list also includes several other Park Service needs. The group claims there are $2.5 billion worth of jobs that are ready to go servicewide. Whether the funding will actually materialize depends on how Congress crafts the legislation. As it stands now, the economic stimulus package would filter down through the states. But some of that money could also go directly to the Park Service.

The next phase of the Sun Road reconstruction is from Big Bend to Logan Pass. That work should start next year and will run at least into 2010.

Glacier also has plans to upgrade the toilet facilities at Logan Pass, fix the Inside North Fork Road, do paving work at Avalanche Creek, and finish up work from Crystal Point to Haystack Creek as well as finalize repairs on both sides of the Sun Road.

Some of those projects, however, will get federal funding as emergency repairs, because they were from flooding in Glacier in 2006.