Highway 206 open house coming up

Hungry Horse News

The Montana Department of Transportation will hold an open house from 4 – 6:30 p.m. April 7 at the Deer Park School on Middle Road to talk with residents about the upcoming Highway 206 project.

Riverside Construction of Missoula is expected to start work on the highway in April, weather provided. The $10.744 million project will add four-foot shoulders to both sides of the highway and flatten out the borrow pits, which fall of steeply in many places from the road surface, resulting a host of accidents over the years.

The narrow road has a history of crashes. From 2014 to 2017 roadway departure crashes resulted in three fatalities and eight serious injuries.

In that same period, there were 116 roadway departure crashes, MDT notes.

The road sees more than 5,000 vehicle trips per day and is projected to see nearly 8,000 by 2037.

The entire 9 miles of road will be reconstructed. Work should be substantially completed by the fall, though chip sealing and the final application of lines will happen in 2023.

Motorists should expect delays during work, but no detours are planned.

Signage on Highway 2 and Highway 35 will alert motorists to the work and delay length, though typically they should be 15 minutes or less.

In addition to the above-mentioned work, Riverside will also installing guardrails, and put in centerline and shoulder rumble strips. In addition, the contractor will upgrade the sidewalks at the Park-n-Ride parking lot located at the junction of US Highway 2 and 206.

To sign up for construction email updates, text HWY206 to the phone number 22828; or to receive text updates text HWY206 to (866) 434-0866 (toll-free). More information about the planned improvements can be found at:  https://www.mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/secondary206/