MISSOULA — A pedestrian bridge to West Broadway Island that cost $800,000 to build less than a decade ago is now slated for removal at an estimated cost of $800,000, according to citizen journalist Travis Mateer of ZoomChron.
The final draft of the West Broadway Corridor master plan includes the bridge removal as part of future improvements to the area, Mateer reported Wednesday. The proposal comes six years after Mateer warned readers in 2019 that Missoula was building a “bridge to nowhere” and urged local media to cover the project’s escalating costs.
The Missoula Redevelopment Agency originally estimated the project at $500,000 in Tax Increment Financing in 2019, according to Mateer’s reporting. The final construction cost reached $800,000, a 60% increase from the original estimate.
The bridge project aimed to increase public access to West Broadway Island, city-owned conservation land, according to a February 2019 report by KPAX. The improvements included a new pedestrian bridge to the island, upgrades to a utility bridge at the south end of Burton Street, a pedestrian trail extension and river access improvements.
Original Justification Focused on Crime Reduction
MRA board members justified the project in 2018 as a strategy to address criminal activity on the island by increasing legitimate recreational use, according to reporting from the Missoulian.
“When we talked to [police Chief Mike Brady], he said the police department is absolutely supporting this project,” MRA board member Mike Behan told the Missoulian in December 2018. “For many years, the island has been an area where transients have camped. However, over the past three years there has been a dramatic increase of intravenous drug use and other criminal activity associated with campers on the island.”
“The more people down there, it cleans stuff up to a great extent,” Behan said at the time.
The MRA had been working on the bridge project for five years before securing enough funding to move forward, Behan told the Missoulian. The project was funded through Tax Increment Financing from Urban Renewal District II, with an additional $10,000 contribution from Hellgate Valley Irrigation Company.
2019 Warnings Went Unheeded
In August 2019, Mateer reported hearing the project cost “significantly more” than the $500,000 estimate and that construction delays were not weather-related, despite official explanations.
“It’s this kind of stupid, costly stuff that people in Missoula need to know about and should demand accountability for,” Mateer wrote in his 2019 report. “Out of control spending is not just some conservative talking point, it’s the constant, persistent reality of those who arrogantly disperse OUR money through the unaccountable Missoula Redevelopment Agency.”
Mateer attempted to make public comment on the bridge removal Tuesday at the Climate, Conservation and Parks Committee meeting but was unable to participate. When he called in at 10:12 a.m., the meeting had already moved past public comment, he reported.
“Does the public know its bridge to nowhere is going to be removed?” Mateer wrote in his Tuesday report. “One of my sources told me the line-item on this part of the MASTER plan is $800,000, or, for those keeping score, approximately the SAME AMOUNT it cost this city to built a bridge I warned them about building in the first place.”
The draft West Broadway River Corridor Master Plan confirms the bridge removal as part of a broader $7 million project to restore the Clark Fork River corridor between McCormick Park and the California Street Bridge, according to city documents.
The master plan proposes “widening the side channel and removing the bridges from the mainland to the island” to eliminate terrestrial access to West Broadway Island, establishing “float-in only access” to protect wildlife habitat, according to the plan’s West Broadway Island Habitat Improvement & Protection section.
The bridge removal question has already drawn public criticism. One commenter asked city officials on the Engage Missoula website whether the proposal was “a joke” and questioned the financial responsibility of removing infrastructure the city spent money to build less than a decade ago.
“How much money did the city spend on this project area a few years ago putting in, what the public calls, the ‘bridge to nowhere’?” the commenter wrote. “Now you are proposing spending more of our money to take it out?”
City officials responded that the 2011 bridge project used Tax Increment Financing funds and included retrofitting an existing Hellgate Valley Irrigation Company bridge at Burton Street and installing a new upstream bridge with stairs.
“Prior to public acquisition of the irrigation ditch, the City was required to keep the Burton St. bridge in place to maintain equipment access for ditch maintenance,” city officials wrote in response. “That is no longer the case.”
The master plan’s public comment period runs through Saturday. The Missoula Redevelopment Agency Board and Parks and Recreation Board will review the final draft in early 2026 before making a recommendation to City Council on adoption.
Comments
9 responses to “Missoula’s $800,000 Pedestrian Bridge Slated for Removal Less Than a Decade After Construction”
If we know of continual drug use and criminal activity, why are these people not continually arrested? It would not take long for them to realize this is not a place to hang out & use drugs.
Drug use in that area is out of control, and I wouldn’t let my kids anywhere near it. Credit to the city for trying to address it, because even the most “gentle” Missoulians don’t accept people shooting up in public. But removing the footbridge doesn’t solve the problem—it likely just pushes IV drug use onto Broadway instead of concentrating it on the island. The bridge isn’t the root issue; the location of the Povarello center is. And the original claim that “more foot traffic will deter IV drug use” clearly didn’t hold up.
It baffles me to think that MRA board member Behan thought that encouraging “more people” (regular citizens and families) to go into an unsafe location in order to “clean it up” was ever a good idea. Enforcement is what stops people from breaking the law.
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.”
Timeless wisdom written by G.K. Chesterton over 100 years ago.
In this case, the Progressive built the bridge and, as soon as it was completed, the Conservative began to admire it, even though it was a mistake. Now that it has been deemed a mistake, the Progressive wants to correct it by tearing it down, but the Conservative, who resisted the construction in the first place, cannot allow that to happen and is fiercely resisting the demolition. In the meantime, while the Conservative is busy championing the view, the Progressive has already moved on and is busily planning the next bone-headed way to squander the taxpayer’s money which, of course, the Conservative will argue against and fiercely oppose—that is, until the deed is done, at which point, opposition will turn into full-throated approval.
Such is the nature of government, populated alike by idiots like Progressives and dunderheads like Conservatives.
Who is “the conservative” you are referring to that is, allegedly, “fiercely resisting the demolition”?
I will not name names nor zero in on any particular person. My comment was meant in a general sort of way. The terms “progressive”, “liberal”, “conservative”, and the like are class labels. Nothing more.
Was Mencken off base when he first published his assertion or was it accurate? If it was wrong, in what way? If it was true then, would it not be true now? Am I mistaken?
Nothing to see here, move along.
Just democrats doing what democrats do best – waste taxpayers money.
Just think what $800,000 could have done for homeless people. And now another $800,000? One million six hundred thousand dollars could have built a lot of affordable housing.
Move along now and don’t question the democrats – just keep giving us your tax dollars!
The quiet Guidnunc, or demanding Prig
The plaintiff Tory, or defendant Whig
Rich, poor, male, female, young, old, gay or sad.
Edward Young., Circa 1730 ‘The End.
It is reminiscent of the old story of how to make a blanket a foot longer. You cut a foot off the left end and sew it onto the right end. That is the logic of this project and encapsulates the intelligence of planners in the city and county of Missoula.