The section of West Reserve Drive between the Glacier High School roundabout and Farm to Market Road will be placed on the state’s priority funding list for secondary road improvements, the Flathead County commissioners decided Wednesday in a split vote.

The county was tasked with finding a replacement project for the priority list after learning recently that Willow Glen Drive has been redesignated as an urban route and no longer meets the criteria for secondary road funding.

Commissioners Gary Krueger and Pam Holm-quist voted for the West Reserve project, while Commissioner Cal Scott favored putting Whitefish Stage Road on the priority list.

In addition to Whitefish Stage, the North Fork Road and Montana 206 were other secondary roads initially in the running for priority placement.

State Secondary Roads Engineer Wayne Noem in December drafted a letter for the county commissioners, suggesting Whitefish Stage Road be named on the list for $5.7 million in improvements.

The decision was up to the commissioners, however.

During a meeting with state highway officials in January, Montana Department of Transportation Missoula District Administrator Ed Toavs said Whitefish Stage, Montana 206 and the North Fork Road are all “five-star projects.”

Krueger, who lives in the West Valley area that would be served by the West Reserve Drive project, pushed for that project, asking highway officials for traffic data and arguing that the county needs better east-west connector roads.

Scott said after traveling both West Reserve and Whitefish Stage, he preferred the Whitefish Stage priority listing.

“The condition of Whitefish Stage is deplorable compared to West Reserve,” Scott said. “It pitches a vehicle right and left just driving down it.”

Scott also said the population density and number of housing units are greater along the Whitefish Stage corridor.

The state recommended the replacement project be somewhere in the $5 million range.

Krueger said the West Reserve improvements, pegged at $4.9 million, fall in line with the state’s $5 million directive, and he noted the projected future growth rate is higher for West Reserve than it is for Whitefish Stage.

There’s broad support for the West Reserve improvements, he said, noting he had received 35 emails in support.

Holmquist said she favored the West Reserve project based on the projected growth in that area.

“We need to do something where the population is growing,” she said.

While Montana 206 currently has the most traffic of the four secondary roads under consideration — 4,310 daily vehicle trips in 2012 — its projected growth rate over the next 20 years is only 1.8 percent.

That compares with 3,820 daily trips on the west stretch of West Reserve, which is projected to have a 3.4 percent growth rate over the next two decades. By the year 2033 West Reserve will have an estimated 7,710 daily vehicle trips.

The daily traffic count on the north stretch of Whitefish Stage was 2,210 last year, with a 1.8 percent projected growth rate.

North Fork Road had a daily traffic count of 290 vehicles last year, with a 1 percent projected growth rate.

When state highway officials figured the overall cost for rebuilding each of the four roads, they used a formula of $1.7 million per mile for three of the projects, resulting in costs of $12.1 million for 7.1 miles of Whitefish Stage between West Reserve and Hodgson Road; $4.9 million for 2.9 miles of West Reserve from Stillwater Road to Farm to Market Road; and $16.5 million for 9.7 miles of Montana 206.

A different formula was used for the North Fork Road because it wouldn’t need full reconstruction; that project would cost $6.6 million for 10.2 miles.

All of the commissioners agreed to ask the state to include a bike path for the West Reserve project.

Flathead County’s next secondary-road project is still about five years away. Montana will get $27.3 million in federal money this year for secondary-road projects.

The state has three pots of state money from which secondary-road improvements can be made: Federal safety money, state maintenance money and the secondary federal-aid program.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.