Missoula unveils draft West Broadway vision; planners weigh 3‑lane vs. 4‑lane tradeoffs

Consultants and city staff presented a draft vision for West Broadway in Missoula and sought public feedback Wednesday evening on design options that would reshape the corridor’s streetscape, pedestrian access and parking.

The draft centers on extending downtown into a Riverfront Triangle, improving connections to the Clark Fork River with a Riverfront Greenway, and creating several activity nodes (including a proposed village center at Burton and a Safeway node). Transportation staff and consultants laid out three cross‑section scenarios and intersection options and discussed tradeoffs between an enhanced three‑lane roadway and a potential four‑lane section in the future.

The consultants said the corridor should be “a safe, vibrant, and attractive multimodal transportation gateway to Downtown Missoula,” with streetscape, safety, connections and land‑use strategies guiding design. “We have a presentation that will be partly familiar … and partly fairly new,” Brian, a city staff facilitator, told the meeting. Transportation planner Jeff Key, of Robert Petch and Associates, described the technical tradeoffs and capacity estimates.

Why it matters: West Broadway is a primary approach to downtown with existing redevelopment interest, nearby anchors including the hospital and supermarket, and an opportunity to link downtown to the river. Choices about lane configuration, right‑of‑way acquisition and access management will shape safety,…