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The road to Polebridge will eventually see improvements North Forkers learned last week.
A plan to improve the upper end of the North Fork Road and the road to the Polebridge Ranger Station is still in the works, Flathead County Public Works Director Dave Prunty told North Forkers at a recent meeting.
The project, which is expected to cost about $1.8 million, won’t likely happen, however, until 2021 or 2022. It’s been in the works for about 10 years now and is now being administered and designed by the federal Highway Administration.
Prunty said the Park Service, Forest Service, Border Patrol and the county will all share in a 13.42 percent match of the project.
The roads in both locations are in bad shape, with numerous ruts and washes. The road to Polebridge, for example, floods almost every year with washes that fill in with water, making significant ponds in the spring.
Prunty said he had confidence that the highway administration would come up with a good plan — they administered recent the rehabilitation of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. But there are several aspects of road reconstruction that will have to be addressed.
For example, gravel is used from a pit with spotted knapweed, it will have to be sprayed and certified weed-free before it can be used. If a pit has had target shooting, it would have to be tested for lead contamination before the gravel could be used.