State seeks comments on Highway 206 project; 2017 looks to be busy
The summer of 2017 should be a busy one in the Glacier Park and Columbia Falls area.
The Montana Department of Transportation has plans to rebuild Highway 206 from Columbia Heights to Woody’s. It also has plans to replace the U.S. Highway 2 bridge over the South Fork of the Flathead in the Bad Rock Canyon and to improve the sidewalks and do a chip-seal overlay of Highway 2 through Columbia Falls.
In Glacier National Park, the plan is to rebuild the last stretch of the Going-to-the-Sun Road from Apgar to Avalanche Creek. That’s the last section of highway that needs to be completed.
The Highway 206 project will cost about $6 million, said MDT design engineer William Squires. MDT is currently seeking comments on a proposal to improve the road. The project begins at reference post 0.23, just north of the Montana 35 junction, and extends northerly 9.4 miles to reference post 9.61, about .2 miles south of the Highway 2 junction.
Proposed work includes shoulder widening, roadside slope flattening, backslope excavation, a new pavement overlay, and finishing with a seal and cover. Upgraded pavement markings, signage and guardrail are also proposed. The purpose of the project is to enhance roadside safety along this route which has an identified trend of road departure crashes. The road currently has a deep borrow pit on either side and has been the site of numerous rollover accidents.
The project is scheduled for construction in the summer of 2017, depending on completion of all project development activities and availability of funding.
New right-of-way and utility relocations will be needed. MDT staff has contacted all potentially affected landowners prior to performing survey work on their land. Staff will again contact landowners prior to construction regarding property acquisition and temporary construction permits.
Squires said MDT will not attempt to straighten some of the curves on the highway.
He said the curves meet design standards and while a recent traffic study found that there has been about 16 accidents on the curves in recent years, six of those were related to drug or alcohol use and none of them were fatal.
For more information, please contact Missoula District Administrator Ed Toavs at (406) 523-5802 or Squires at (406) 4446228.
Members of the public may submit written comments to the Montana Department of Transportation Missoula office at PO Box 7039, Missoula, MT 59807-7039,