The Gateway To Glacier Trail project in the Canyon is one of four trail projects vying for federal grant money held by Flathead County.

Flathead County planner Alex Hogle said the county expects to receive $307,000 in Community Transportation Enhancement Program money this year through the Montana Department of Transportation, bringing the county’s CTEP balance to $819,500.

The county has received more than $4.7 million in CTEP money for trail and other transportation-enhancement projects since 1992. Typically a local match is required, which the county expects project supporters to come up with through fundraising.

The first segment of the Gateway To Glacier Trail would run from Coram to West Glacier in the broad right-of-way along U.S. 2. A bike and pedestrian trail already exists from Hungry Horse to Coram.

Another proposed segment would run through Bad Rock Canyon and across the South Fork of the Flathead River connecting Columbia Heights to Hungry Horse. Work on that segment will likely be part of a highway reconstruction project currently in the preliminary planning phase.

The cost for the 8-mile Coram to West Glacier segment is about $871,745 and requires a 13.42 percent match, or $116,988. Hogle said MDT supports construction of that section of trail, and that the local trail group has raised $58,450.

“They’ve already been actively fundraising quite successfully,” Hogle said. “That indicates broad support for that project in that community.”

Other trail projects competing for the county’s CTEP money include the Sam Bibler Commemorative Trails Project, North Willow Glen Trail, a mile-long trail in Kalispell expected to cost $827,600. The group behind the project has not yet raised money for the $111,064 match.

The 2.1-mile long Stillwater River Trail at Flathead Valley Community College is estimated to cost $363,559. FVCC had proposed using its heavy equipment class to do some of the work, but donated labor is not allowed in CTEP projects, Hogle said.

Flathead County Fairgrounds manager Mark Campbell has proposed using $361,865 in CTEP money for fencing and nine-tenths of a mile of trail connecting parking lots there. The county’s policy is not to pay matching funds for CTEP projects, but it could come from the county’s capital improvements plan.

First Best Place, a Columbia Falls-based nonprofit, had hoped to use CTEP money to repair the Red Bridge over the Flathead River, but the county commissioners “unencumbered” $500,000 in CTEP money earmarked for the project in September 2011. The commissioners also decided in March this year not to pursue federal grant money to remove the bridge as a safety hazard.