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City engineers weigh road-diet options for busy Montana Avenue; MDT chip-seal to proceed
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Summary
Engineering staff updated council on Montana Avenue coordination with MDT and recommended against angle parking and pull-in schemes for the corridor (roughly 10,000 vehicles/day), favoring targeted traffic-calming elements and a later CIP for larger changes; converting the segment to two-way could forfeit MDT funding, staff warned.
City engineers updated the Billings City Council on options for Montana Avenue on Monday and urged a measured approach that preserves MDT repairs while exploring heavier traffic-calming as a future capital project.
The Montana Avenue corridor carries roughly 10,000 vehicles per day, staff said, and Montana Department of Transportation work this year will include chip seal, select curb repairs and crosswalk replacement. Staff reviewed several alternatives: back-in angle parking (MDT-preferred on the south side historically but not recommended for this corridor), pull-in angle parking like downtown (rejected because Montana’s higher volumes and speeds make it unsafe), and striping/parallel parking changes (unlikely to change driver behavior). Instead, engineers proposed heavier traffic-calming measures — curb extensions, widened sidewalks, and raised intersections — as a longer-term CIP strategy.
Council members asked whether Montana Avenue could be converted to two-way operation. Planning and engineering staff said that because Montana Avenue is an MDT-designated route, changing its functional classification or operations could cause the city to lose MDT funding for that corridor and take on full maintenance responsibility.
Staff said they will continue coordination with MDT to make crosswalks and intersections more visible and to limit the chip-seal scope to preservation work this year, while studying targeted local improvements as part of a future capital project.
The council did not vote on a change in operations; staff presented options and sought feedback for later design work and coordination with MDT.
