By Jeff Gailus
Wildlife Connectivity and Grants Specialist
The Montana Department of Transportation is moving forward with its long-awaited redesign of US-2 through Bad Rock Canyon east of Columbia Falls. The redesign presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build wildlife crossing structure that would greatly enhance the safety of motorists, wildlife and cyclists at this important wildlife movement corridor between the Swan and Whitefish Mountain ranges through the eastern edge of the Flathead Valley.
So as not to miss this critical opportunity, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance along with a growing coalition of conservation and recreation organizations, businesses, and individuals have teamed up to push for a Gateway to Glacier Wildlife Crossing at Bad Rock Canyon. The ideal structure would pass both big game moving in and out of the Bad Rock Canyon Wildlife Management Area, as well as rare mammals, like grizzly bears and wolverine. We’re also calling for the inclusion of a bike lane to complete the Gateway to Glacier bike path between West Glacier and Columbia Falls.
A wildlife crossing structure at this critical location would benefit not only wildlife, but motorists.
Injury attorneys have identified Montana’s US-2 highway as one of “the most dangerous roads in the country,” and Bad Rock Canyon is a particularly dangerous stretch of road on US-2. Which is why the Montana Department of Transportation has been planning to widen the highway here for more than 30 years. The recent influx of new residents in the Flathead Valley and increasing numbers of visitors to Glacier National Park only has compounded the problem.
This project “needs to happen,” said former MDT Missoula District Administrator Ed Toavs, way back in 2019. “Because as traffic increases more and more and more, and also bicycle and pedestrian traffic with the shared use path, that becomes more and more dangerous. And more and more of a safety issue in the summertime. And that’s something that we just need to avoid.”
And, he said, “there’s wildlife crossings to consider.”
KLJ, the engineering firm who developed the latest (2020) planning study for Bad Rock Canyon, concluded that “carcass, crash and wildlife data collected along the project corridor make a strong case for the incorporation of wildlife accommodations along the west end of the project corridor. This area has an established history of wildlife/vehicle interactions as well as additional supporting wildlife observation data. There are no existing culvert or bridge structures located along the project corridor that could be upsized in order to provide wildlife accommodation, so in order to pass wildlife underneath or overtop the roadway, a dedicated wildlife crossing would be required.”
The Teakettle and Hungry Horse bridges over the Flathead River were widened years ago, and now that the CSKT ethnographic study examining potential impacts to cultural resources has been completed, MDT will soon make decisions about what modifications they will include to the highway corridor between the new bridges. As Toavs said in 2019, a wildlife crossing structure was always contemplated as part of the project, but recent indications suggest that the soaring costs of the project has left MDT wavering on whether to include one.
“Now is the time to start thinking about the design of an overpass,” said Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance Executive Director Peter Metcalf. “If the goal of the Bad Rock project is to increase motorist safety as much as possible, the only way to do it is to include a wildlife crossing structure and fence the animals off the highway.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to virtually eliminate wildlife-vehicle collisions in the most cost-effective way. Opportunities like this don’t come along all that often, and it will likely only add less than 10 per cent to the construction costs.”
Building crossing structures to prevent collisions and enhance habitat connectivity is not some pie-in-the-sky fever dream. When US-93 North was widened in the 2010s, many underpasses and an overpass were built, along with miles of fencing to keep grizzly bears, black bears, elk and other critters off the road. It was such a huge success that when MDT improved US-93 South in the Bitterroot Valley, it included numerous crossing structures as well.
With 81 fish and wildlife crossing structures MDT (rightfully) brags that these US-93 reconstruction projects “represent the most extensive wildlife-sensitive highway design and construction effort in both road length and number of crossing structures in North America.”
On the edge of world-famous Glacier National Park and the banks of the equally renowned Flathead River, Bad Rock Canyon is every bit as important for wildlife movement as mitigations on US 93. If MDT can do it there, they can do it here, and continue to build a reputation as an innovative leader in improving wildlife connectivity and motorist safety in the transportation industry.
Join us in our mission to ensure a Gateway to Glacier Wildlife Crossing structure is included in the final plans of MDT’s Bad Rock Canyon highway improvement project. Generations of motorists, cyclists, and wild animals will thank us.