by Nathan Boddy
The City of Hamilton will be one of only three municipalities in the state of Montana to receive RAISE grant funds for the 2023 cycle. RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grants are awarded for both planning efforts and construction. In the case of Hamilton, the over $870,000 grant will be used to plan for the reconstruction, improvement and realignment of Eastside Highway (called Marcus Street within the city) between Highway 93 and its intersection with Fairgrounds Road east of town.
“We’re all really excited,” said City Planner, Matthew Rohrbach.
Rohrbach said that city staff worked on assembling a grant for RAISE funds in 2022, and while their application was denied, they took a lot of the comments to heart and were able to pull together a more detailed application package and focus the grant on only the segment between the Marcus/Hwy 93 intersection and the dangerous intersection of the Eastside Highway and Fairgrounds Road. At that location, the traffic volumes and the rising hill to the south make visibility an ongoing safety issue.
“This project is going to look at realigning the intersection at Fairgrounds Road and Eastside Highway to improve safety and site distance issues,” said Rohrbach.
The grant will also allow the city to plan for other improvements such as those to bicycle and pedestrian safety along the busy corridor which leads directly into downtown, Highway 93, two schools and more. “The city has been trying to get a path on Marcus Street since before any of us has been here,” he said.
The corridor is so critical, in fact, that the Montana Department of Transportation nominated the Kurtz/Marcus intersection for a safety study several years ago on account of the accidents at that site. Hundreds of cars pass to and from Hamilton High School and often at high speeds causing, what Rohrbach describes as, “a crash cluster.” Following their study, MDT recommended a four-way stop, which they are actively working to fund.
“That’s something that’s in the hopper for the corridor,” said Danny Ramer, City Public Works Director, who also worked extensively on the grant application. However, he pointed out that the new federal grant will allow the city to look at whether, “it makes sense to have something other than a four-way stop.” Ramer says that the intersection did not meet the cost ratio for a roundabout at the location when MDT did the study, but that MDT did say that a roundabout could work. “No one solution is fixed,” said Ramer.
Both Rohrbach and Ramer point out that many entities were pivotal in lending their names and support to the grant seeking effort. WGM in Missoula worked with the city on their first grant application, and Ravalli County, Montana Rail Link, Ravalli County Economic Development Authority, Bitterroot Health, elected officials and landowners all stood behind the application effort. Still, more public participation will be forthcoming.
“It does take time,” said Rohrbach, pointing out that it is important to manage expectations. “It is going to take years, but this grant is really going to help us come up with a project that is quality and set us up for the bigger grant dollars.” He and Ramer both said that many of the planning elements will take into account the changing nature of transit in our country, including the expanding need for Electric Vehicles, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Smart Signaling and the utilities to serve them. They describe the planning effort as ‘future proofing’ the Marcus Street/Eastside Highway Corridor.
Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf expressed his appreciation of their efforts, saying, “I’m really proud of the city staff, the way they worked on this project and were awarded this funding. This all goes into responsible growth. We know we’re growing and we know we’re growing fast. To identify some of the concerns we have on this corridor and plan for the future in a responsible way really makes projects like this make sense.”
An added feather in the caps of all city staff who worked on the federal grant application is that there are zero city funds required for a match. For the investment of their time, the City of Hamilton is bringing hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to the table for the improvement of Hamilton. And while City staff is aware that working with the USDOT and other entities to get the ball rolling may take time, the long term goal is worth the wait.
“It might take a few years,” said Rohrbach, “but in the end I think it’s going to be worth it.”