Speed limit questioned

The Mineral County Commissioners met with a representative from the Montana Department of Transportation Wednesday morning to discuss the possibility of lowering the speed limit on Highway 135 near St. Regis.

“It is kind of a growing area and it’s a need,” said Jessica Connolly, a St. Regis community member who helped circulate a petition to have the speed limit lowered.

Connolly and others are concerned that cars are going too fast in the 50 mile per hour speed zone near St. Regis.

Duane Simons, a St. Regis resident and candidate for Mineral County Commissioner, said that he was concerned that trucks coming out of TriCon Timber that are moving very slowly pose a hazard to vehicles that are coming into town moving quickly.

“I haven’t ever personally seen a traffic accident out there but it’s one waiting to happen,” Simons said.

Connolly’s petition was signed by 163 members of the community. She said that, if she had time, she believes that she could get the entire community to sign it.

Her petition says that the speed limit should be lowered because there are sidewalks on both sides of the road with pedestrian traffic, more than 10 new businesses have been put into place since the last speed study was done on the section of highway. Two children have been struck by vehicles and killed on the section of road in question, including 14-year-old Morgan Hostetler, who died in September 2005 on the highway while he was riding his bike to school. The petition also expresses concern that the fire department is located along that stretch of road and emergency vehicles entering the highway with people traveling at a high rate of speed could cause an accident.

Glen Cameron, from the MDOT, presented the results of the most recent speed study done on the area to the commissioners.

Cameron said that the MDOT sampled speeds on the road for two days during the summer months all the way through the area in question and for a short distance past the ends of the speed zone.

He said that based on the data the lowest speed the MDOT would recommend was 45 miles per mph. However, Cameron said that the numbers only presented one side of the story and MDOT would listen to concerns from the community when considering the speed limit change.

“This is just the hard data, now we can move on to the other stuff like what the community wants and needs,” Cameron said.

Connolly’s petition calls for the speed limit to be lowered to 30 mph, and then phased up from 40 to 50 to 60 and then 70 mph.

Cameron told commissioners that they would have to submit their concerns to Duane Kailey, the district administrator for the MDOT in Missoula, who would then consider all of the elements and help make a final decision.

“I’m not here to tell you that this is how it is and this is how it’s got to be,” Cameron said.

Mineral County Commissioner Clark Conrow said after the meeting that the commissioners would likely side with Connolly and send in recommendations reflecting the concerns of her petition.