Missoula County allocates $250K from bond to fund design, engineering of trails

Missoula County will allocate funding from the 2014 Parks and Trails Bond to begin the design and engineering of four trail segments scattered across the valley.

The $250,000 allocation will position the trail segments to compete for federal grants if and when they become available. It also moves the county closer to realizing its multi-modal transportation goals in urbanized areas outside the city limits.

“We continue to recognize that the funding strategy to implement trails in Missoula County will rely heavily on leveraging outside funding, particularly federal funding,” said Juniper Davis, manager of the county's open lands division. “We often find ourselves needing more complete project designs and engineering to be competitive for those federal funds.”

The four projects include the Blue Mountain connector trail, which will extend from Highway 93 to the recreation site. The project will reach 100% design and be shovel ready for outside funding.

The list also includes the Mullan Road Trail project, which includes roughly 2.3 miles of trail. The addition will extend from Cote Lane to Deschamps and reach 30% design, Davis said.

“By this fall, we'll have a comprehensive and approved pathways and trails master plan in place,” said Davis. “The county will hopefully have a grant ready for engineering several priority trails.”

Phase 2 of the Frenchtown Trail is also included and covers 2.2 miles along Mullan Road from Beckwith Street to Houle Creek Road. It will also be 30% design.

The last project – the Bonner Streetcar Trail – covers around 1.7 miles from Tamarack Road to Speedway Avenue in East Missoula. Davis said it was a priority trail as identified in the recent Highway 200 corridor study. The funding would see if the trail was feasible or not.

“We would not be proposing to take this to 30% design,” Davis said. “Before we take that project any further, we need to determine whether the project is feasible due to the recent Montana Department of Transportation emergency road repair work they did there at Marshall Grade.”

The county wants to complete the design and engineering of its priority trails ahead of any funding that may come from the recent Infrastructure Bill.

Davis said recent success with grants has enabled the county to address pavement preservation on its existing trails and shift toward the construction of new priority trails next year.

“Acting now will put us in a competitive position at a time where funding at the federal level is particularly promising,” Davis said.