Huge stimulus package could help Sun Road

A stimulus package under consideration by president-elect Barack Obama aimed at getting the economy going again could provide needed money for Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Estimates of the package range from $400 billion to as high as $800 billion. The money would mostly go to public infrastructure and energy projects across the nation, including roads.

The National Parks Conser vation Association is campaigning to have the Sun Road get a piece of the package. The association, a nonprofit national parks advocacy group, wants Congress and the new administration to recognize “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects in national parks such as Glacier.

In a recent report, NPCA identified 10 priority projects across the U.S., and the Sun Road is the largest. To advance a comprehensive reconstruction project that started on the Sun Road last year, more than $21 million is needed, according to the report.

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.

Will Hammerquist, NPCA’s Glacier Park field representative, said the Sun Road “is lining up to be the No. 1 park economic stimulus project in the country.”

Meanwhile, Whitefish resident Steve Thompson, the former Glacier Park field representative for NPCA and now president of Flathead Gateway Partners, says his nonprofit group is also trying to get a piece of the stimulus money.

Thompson said the A Trail Runs Through It project, which calls for building an 80-mile long trail around Whitefish Lake, could employ 12 workers. He said the group wants to stretch out over several years the use of the $3.1 million recently obtained from Silicon Valley-investor Michael Goguen after his land exchange was approved last week.

Lobbying is underway in Washington. NPCA board member Denis Gavin testified last week before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, stressing infrastructure needs in national parks.

“The National Park Service has approximately $1 billion of projects that clearly are ‘ready to go’ and are focused on restoring historic structures, repairing national park infrastructure, greening park facilities and fixing trails,” Gavin said. “We estimate these projects would produce upwards of 22,000 jobs.”

Gavin went on to cite the Sun Road as “perhaps the most dramatic example” of national park infrastructure needs.

The Sun Road was opened 75 years ago, and has since endured falling rocks, avalanches, severe weather and heavy traffic. Next summer, reconstruction initially will focus on west-side segments between Crystal Point and Haystack Creek, and from Big Bend to Logan Pass.