Letter to the Editor: Four lanes needed for Highway 2

Editor:

The Montana Department of Transportation has recently advertised for a public response to their plan to reconstruct U.S. Highway 2 from Chinook to Fort Belknap. What’s troubling is that once they have completed the project, Highway 2 will continue being a narrow, dangerous highway with no shoulders. And we are supposed to be happy with that, Uff Da.

Even worse, MDT boasts that it will extend the life of the highway, which means MDT has no plans to construct an adequate, safe highway.

Friends and neighbors, we need to put a stop to these ill-advised, feel-good projects. It’s ludicrous to keep spending money on projects that are not directed at:

1) Constructing an adequate transportation system in the Highway 2 Corridor in this, the 21st century, or

2) Improving safety.

The problem we have in this logical termini, Havre to Fort Belknap is that Highway 2 projects are being designed under the constraints of the environmental impact study, completed in 2004, that only allows for a two-lane highway.

The EIS needs to be revisited and repealed. The onus is on MDT to petition the Federal Highway Administration to revisit the study. The Highway 2 Association will push for that. Federal law states that they have to revisit the study;

1) If important facts weren’t considered during the study — and they were not

2) If there are new facts to be considered — and there are

A little history on the EIS is in order. The conclusions rendered in the EIS were

predetermined. Gov. Judy Martz and MDT Director Dave Galt never supported 4 For 2, and they tried their darndest to kill SB 3 in 2001.

When the Montana Legislature approved SB 3, Martz was going to veto the bill, but as luck would have it the Great Falls Tribune released a poll, with 68 percent of the respondents supporting 4 For 2, so she decided to sign SB 3 into law.

Their next move was to hire a consultant to provide results they desired. I was on the 16-member advisory board and was the only one to attend every meeting. It was at the second meeting that I stated, “Why are we going through this exercise? It appears that the conclusions of the study have already been determined.”

As it turned, out I was right.

Please join me in asking MDT to petition FHA to revisit the EIS.

If we, the people, aren’t willing to make that request, then we must be satisfied with what we get.

Bob Sivertsen, president

4 For 2 Association