By Bay Stephens EBS LOCAL EDITOR
BIG SKY – At the Gallatin County
Commissioner’s public meeting on July 23, officials opened a bid from infrastructure
engineering firm Sanderson Stewart to conduct the transportation upgrades to
Lone Mountain Trail, a.k.a. Highway 64, that are funded by the $10.3 million
TIGER grant.
The project includes the
construction of seven turn lanes on Lone Mountain Trail to help handle Big
Sky’s current and future traffic volumes, as well as a pedestrian tunnel
beneath the highway where Little Coyote Road intersects the highway near Meadow
Village Center.
Sanderson Stewart, which has
offices in Bozeman, Billings, Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado, included in
its bid three sub consultants: HDR for environmental items, SK Geotechnical and
Stahly Engineering and Associates for the pedestrian underpass, according to
Jamie Grabinski, grants coordinator for Gallatin County.
The Transportation Investment
Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant was awarded by the U.S. Department
of Transportation to the Big Sky project in March of 2018, and included nearly
$2.5 million for the Skyline bus system, which will include adding four buses
and six vans to the existing public transport fleet servicing Big Sky and the
greater Bozeman area.
The grant was signed by the county
commissioners in June after a 15-month back-and-forth process between the
federal and county government. The request for bids was sent out directly after
that.
Grabinski told the commissioners
that the bid included all of the requested aspects of the project and that she
will return to them a recommendation sometime in early August. Expected
completion of the road improvements falls around July of 2022.
