BELGRADE — You may recall a story I told you about a few months ago: a transportation safety plan for the city of Belgrade. Well I’m here to tell you, after receiving tons of feedback from community members expressing their concerns, an upgraded plan is about to roll out.
For residents like Michael Rouchleau, driving around the greater Belgrade area is a daily occurrence and has been for the last 20 years. So I asked this local where the most concerning areas around town are.
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“Jackrabbit seems to be the worst. Even Main Street through Belgrade gets pretty backed up, to be honest,” says Michael.
Michael isn’t the only Belgrade resident with these concerns
“We reached out to a couple hundred folks. Just online, we received more than 100 responses. Where people were actually able to put a dot on the map and tell us about why they didn’t like a particular intersection or part of town,” Camaree Uljua tells me.
Uljua is the director of public works for the City of Belgrade. She tells me around two months ago, a federal grant called Safe Streets For All allowed the city to implement a safety action plan, aimed at improving transportation safety in the greater Belgrade area. Through open houses and popups you may have seen around town, the city was able to learn:
“Bicycle and pedestrian connectivity was one of the top ones. But also we heard a lot about intersection safety,” says Uljua.
As many folks, including Michael, could’ve guessed?
“Our hot spots were definitely along Jackrabbit Lane. In particular, regarding the ability to make left turns throughout the entire corridor," Uljua tells me.
Uljua says the city was able to take the public’s feedback and combine it with actual crash data in those areas.
“What we found was there’s actually quite a bit of overlap there. So that helps us validate the fact that we’re maybe looking at the right parts of town,” she says.
The city is preparing for its second round of public engagement this week, where they will have conceptual designs of sidewalk connectivity, the downtown corridor, as well as the Jackrabbit area.
“This round of public engagement will be an opportunity for folks to give us some input on whether or not they think we’re headed in the right direction there,” Uljua tells me.
Two popups will take place this week. The first will be Tuesday, from noon to 2 p.m. at the new Belgrade Public Library, followed by an open house from 4 to 6 p.m. There will also be another popup on Wednesday at Albertsons in the afternoon—an opportunity folks like Michael think the community should take up.
“I think we should just keep improving Montana. Making it greater every day and make the roadways better so people can travel safely” says Michael.
Click here for more information about Belgrade's transportation safety plan.
