MISSOULA — Missoula’s Downtown Safety, Access, and Mobility (SAM) project looks to completely reshape downtown, mainly by converting Front and Main streets back to two-way, turning Higgins down to Brooks Street to three lanes, adding more bike lanes and retiming traffic signals.
With many moving parts, the city turned to the community to understand the needs and wants of those who live and work downtown.
“There's so many different interests in downtown and it's a complicated project and we really wanted to know all the different perspectives that people have,” Jeremy Keene, public works and mobility director for the City of Missoula, said.
WATCH COVERAGE ON THE DOWNTOWN SAM PROJECT BELOW:
Keene says the city helped form a citizens’ working group with 18 people who have interests downtown.
One of those people is Karen Sipey, who largely advocated for the urban forestry downtown.
“My main interests were downtown building owners and businesses, the urban forest," Sipey said. "I wanted to make sure that I know that there are going to be some trees that have to be removed. It's the nature of a big project like this. But as a working group, our goal is to have a net zero loss of trees within the whole project area. So where can we replace trees that are going to have to be pulled out?”
The city says the citizens were an outstanding example of a successful working group whose input was crucial to the plan’s design.
“We certainly learned a lot from the group, and we made decisions based on the input we got from the group. And so I think it's a better project now,” Keene said.
While the project may not satisfy everyone, Sipey still says the working group’s efforts in planning together make the plan better.
“A lot of it was about communicating and making sure that there is great communication with the community before, during and after the project. In the end, it's going to be a great thing for downtown,” Sipey said.
The plan is expected to be finalized later this year, with construction potentially beginning in early to mid 2027. You can read more about SAM here.
