Scenic Montana 35: July 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

What Were They Thinking?

Howdy Friends,

"It was a mistake," said a grim-faced Joe Lavadure late Thursday morning as he waved our long line of traffic past a big flatbed truck bearing a huge iron cylinder.
The truck snarled traffic Thursday as it lumbered up Highway 35, with an escort of pilot cars, service trucks and wire-lifting crews from Flathead Electric Coop, CenturyTel and Bresnan. Apparently it's been snarling traffic for a couple of days all the way from Missoula.
The iron cylinder is reportedly one component for a storage tank and is bound for the oil fields in Alberta, according to Dan Moore of the state transportation department's Motor Carrier Services division in Helena.
Lavadure is the division's point man for truck weight enforcement in Kalispell. He was helping to direct traffic around the behemoth. My question for him, as we drove past on Thursday, was why on earth didn't this thing go up wider, newer U.S. Highway 93?
"It was kinda one of those debacles," said Moore. The truck was diverted from Interstate 90 due to construction and was routed north on Highway 93, but for some reason someone in Helena insisted that it veer off on narrow Highway 35.
Two of the pilot car drivers said they had urged the GVW (gross vehicle weight) permitters in Helena to let them stay on Highway 93 around Flathead Lake, but one said "some kids in GVW" had other ideas and made them obtain trip tickets to use Highway 35.
According to Moore, the flatbed and its cargo were slated to go through Bigfork, then head back south up the Swan Valley on Highway 83 to Clearwater Junction, then east on Highway 200 toward Great Falls and on to Alberta.
If you travel any of those routes in the next couple of days, you'll proably have plenty of time to catch up with it.
Meanwhile, the Montana Department of Transportation has collected 93 pages of public comments and another 77 pages of e-mail comments on Highway 35 safety issues such as large inappropriate trucks. You can see and read them at the MDOT web site at http://www.mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/hwy35/ Click on "comments" in the upper left corner of the page. The comments are being analyzed and hopefully read by someone. No word yet on future public meetings or follow-up action.

Cheers,

Don

Welcome

Welcome to this blog, which has been created by Don Schwennesen, a resident of Highway 35 for 28 years with a small fruit orchard that my wife Rose and I have operated for 28 years. Our concerns about safety on this highway have grown with the increasing volume of truck traffic and size of the rigs. This is a low-standard winding scenic route along the east side of Flathead Lake, with a roadway of 24 feet or less. Though a higher-standard route exists on the west shore, U.S. Highway 93, most truckers prefer Highway 35 because it is a few miles shorter and has fewer hills.

In 1991, more than 900 East Shore residents signed petitions and had our state legislator introduce a bill to make this a scenic highway and place some limits on truck transport. The bill was killed in committee under heavy industry lobbying.

Certainly there is need and room for some truck traffic on Highway 35. We have cherry packers shipping fruit, loggers harvesting timber on the east shore, several businesses using construction and earthmoving equipment, at least one gravel pit and three gravel haulers, moving vans helping people move, several taverns and restaurants, and at least one grocery and gas station all requiring deliveries, and doubtless others I have missed.

The fact remains that Montana 35 is only a state highway. It is not built to modern federal standards. It is narrow and winding, without shoulders, with an old roadbed, with many stretches very close to Flathead Lake, with many driveways and approaches that are not always very visible, and with a history of some very nasty truck spills, at least three involving fuel, one involving hazardous wastes, and one that caught fire and burned a lakefront home to the ground.

The state doesn't have much right-of-way along most of this highway, so the chances of upgrading it are slim. Past surveys to relocate the road higher on the mountain have encountered intractable terrain problems, and a higher road location would likely be unsatisfactory to truckers, who don't even like to climb the hills on Highway 93. The state lacks even the funding to do major improvements on the 10 miles of Highway 35 between Bigfork and Woods Bay. Meanwhile, the roadbed is inadequate for the heavy truck use it now receives, so the road deteriorates steadily. It’s not the place to be routing the bulk of traffic traversing western Montana.

In my opinion, this highway needs stricter truck weight and length restrictions and limits on trucks hauling hazardous materials, in addition to greater respect for existing speed limits. But rules imposing these things will not mean much without industry support, because enforcement is extremely difficult. In addition, we need some new way that residents and carriers can register complaints about local conflicts, so these can be reviewed and resolved. It is simply impossible to expect the highway patrol to deal with every complaint.

I welcome lively discussion of these and other Highway 35 issues in this blog, as long as it is civil and respectful.

Scenic Montana 35

Thursday, July 24, 2008

What Were They Thinking?

Appropriate for 35?

Highway 35 Flathead Lake

About The Highway

Welcome

Blog Archive

Highway 35 needs more restrictions on heavy trucks

Highway 35 Swan Mountains

Fuel spill