The Montana Department of Transportation will pause the Bad Rock Canyon U.S. Highway 2 project until an ethnographic study can be completed.

MDT has been planning some sort of widening project for Highway 2 through the canyon for years.

The study will look to identify culturally sensitive areas in the Canyon, which are important to both the Blackfeet and Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Bob Vosen, District 1 administrator said recently.

“We need to have an opportunity to review the area,” Vosen said. He said the tribes don’t want damage done to the historical areas.

Vosen said a contract for the investigation hasn’t been let yet, so he didn’t know exactly when the investigation would be completed.

MDT has previously said it was considering expanding the highway out over the river, rather than widening the road into the canyon itself. A couple of years ago drilling work was done in the river, which didn’t bring any surprises, Vosen noted.

Vosen said there isn’t a timeline for the project.

A few more years delay isn’t out of the norm. The first planning for the project was in the mid-1990s.

In other road news, Vosen said if MDT can secure one last section of right-of-way, the Highway 206 project should start next year.

The plan for 206 is to address the borrow pits on both sides of the highway and widen the shoulders.

Right now, if a car goes off the road at highway speeds, they often overturn as the borrow pits are steep on either side of the two-lane road.

The U.S. Highway 2 project from Hungry Horse to Stanton Creek is nearing completion. Crews had most of the work done between Hungry Horse and West Glacier just before Labor Day. As a bonus, the bike path from Hungry Horse to West Glacier was also sealed. Vosen said that MDT typically rolls adjacent bike paths into contracts when a road project is contracted.

Knife River did the work.