City eyes federal grant to test Reserve Street safety projects
Martin Kidton
(Missoula Current) Missoula's various transportation committees are lining up behind a grant the city looks to land to test several safety improvements proposed for Reserve Street.
Charlie Menefee, a transportation planner with the city, said the effort looks to secure up to $1.5 million from a federal Safe Streets For All grant. The application requires a 20% local match, or $250,000 from local coffers.
“It's a lot of money for the City of Missoula to provide,” Menefee said. “We're limited in local match and have a short window of time to adopt the grant and coordinate with this year's grant cycle.”
If funded, the project would complete several quick-build interventions at designated intersections on Reserve Street including American Way, River Road, Stockyard Road and old US 93.
The four implementation projects carry an estimated cost of $362,000.
“Those were the hot spots for fatal and serious injury crashes and stand out along the corridor,” Menefee said. “For low cost, we can do intervention, either right-in or right-out, or using the median to limit turning motions. It would reduce the turning movement conflicts that have cause the crash history at those four intersections.”
The initial project would also improve a pedestrian crossing at either 7th Street or the existing crossing near Homewood Suites with lights that alert for pedestrians. Both locations have had fatal or serious pedestrian crash histories, Menefee said.
The grant would also fund a planning and demonstration project to measure any improvements made after the work was finished. It would also include $50,000 to test speed indicators.
“One of the speed management components is the highest speed section of the (Reserve Street) corridor, which is the Clark Fork River bridge,” Menefee said. “There is some question about how effective they are in the long term. You'd want those in the ground and do speed studies before and after they'd been in the ground for a year and see if that has any effect on the corridor.”
According to a letter from the Transportation Policy Coordinating Committee to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Reserve Street serves as a “critical and complex” corridor that carries a high volume of freight, retail, commuter, and pedestrian traffic daily.
The corridor has a well-documented history of serious crashes. Between 2019 and 2023, the corridor recorded over 60 serious injuries and three fatalities.
“The proposed project components represent near-term implementable actions that will generate meaningful safety outcomes while informing longer-term corridor improvements,” the letter states. “This funding will save lives, reduce serious injuries and demonstrate what thoughtful, community-driven safety planning can achieve.”